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Salted with Fire. 


BY 

H. M. LeGEANGE. Uu^l 



“ YE MUST ALL BE SALTED WITH FIRE, AND EVERY SACRIFICE 
MUST BE SALTED WITH SALT.” 



NEW YORK : 

E. J. HALE & SON, PUBLISHERS, 

MURRAY STREET. 


1872. 

O- 


r 



INTRODUCTION. 


Far away from the scenes of those fierce conflicts 
between passion and principle — stranded on the lee- 
shore of life, with calmer pulses and a steadier heart, 
and above all, with the consciousness that I am fast 
nearing that dim shadow-land at whose misty bound- 
aries life’s wildest sorrows lose their sting, and seem 
no longer what they were when we stood to face 
them in the full flush of youth and strength — 1 
propose to write out for you, oh, ever true and 
tender ! the history of my life, and by this mark of 
unsought confidence, vindicate my worthiness of the 
trust you have so generously reposed in me, since 
the hour in which you took me, in such brave un- 
questioning silence, to your heart and home. 

Even then I realized all of your noble-heartedness, 
and felt far more gratitude than words can express, 






















































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SALTED WITH FIRE. 


CHAPTER I. 

The Tressylians, a Norman-French family, came 
in with the Conqueror, and had ever borne an hon- 
orable part in the history of their times. They 
suffered the usual vicissitudes entailed by the great 
civil wars, which from time to time convulsed the 
kingdom. Spending life and treasure lavishly for the 
royal cause during the Cromwellian usurpation, and 
finally being engulfed in the downfall of the Stuarts 
— for they were a loyal race and spared neither blood 
nor substance to support the measures they espoused 
— with the failure of their royal master’s hopes, the 
“ Trusty Tressylians ” forsook public life, and never 
again took an active part in the scenes where they 
were wont to be well represented, but buried them- 
selves in their ancestral halls, clinging fondly to the 
memory of the sovereigns for whom they had done 
and suffered so much. With the proud fidelity which 
1 * 


10 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


characterizes some races, they never, even by acci- 
dental forgetfulness, acknowledged any sovereignty 
but that of the hapless Stuarts; always scornfully 
designating the ruling faction as the “ Hanoverian 
usurpers.” 

Of course this stanch loyalty cost them dear, for 
friends and neighbors who had yielded to the pressure 
of circumstances, and bowed the knee to Baal, fell 
away from those whose faithfulness, through good 
report and evil report, was a reproach to their own 
weakness and defection. And thus, too haughty to 
adapt themselves, for expediency, to the tone and 
temper of their times, they withdrew still more 
from intercourse with the outside world, and found 
their associates and interests only amid the limits 
of the few Jacobite families, who, like themselves, 
had refused to forsake Right for Might. Living 
for years in luxurious indolence, and cultivating as- 
siduously their exclusiveness, the family at length, 
as such families will who count no mesalliances in 
their line, began to diminish perceptibly in numbers 
and vitality. Fewer children were born to them, 
and of those few the larger proportion failed to 
reach maturity. And although, as a haughty ances- 
tress of the house once loftily said, “ What were born 
w r ere still Tressylians,” the family was rapidly dying 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


11 


out. Even Tressylian blood could not maintain its 
vitality unimpaired when there was never a fresh 
healthy current infused into it, and at the period 
from whence my history dates, my father was the 
sole lineal representative of his race. 

Reared in the strictest conformity to the hereditary 
traditions, he married early in life the only daughter 
of his father’s younger brother. I was the third and 
last child of this union. My two brothers died in 
their infancy, and their loss was a sorrow from which 
my mother never recovered. Inheriting, as she did, a 
peculiarly intense nature, coupled with a frail physical 
organization, such as too often marks the lees of an old 
family, she could offer no resistance to mental trouble, 
but drifted into a state of nervous depression which 
completely unfitted her for the cares and duties of 
social life. And thus it happened that I attained the 
age of seventeen, with no companionship except that 
of my parents. In them centred all my happiness, and 
upon them I lavished the utmost devotion, receiving 
from them the tenderest care and most indulgent 
fondness. My life glided away like a holidayrdream, 
from which, alas ! my waking was to be rude and 
terrible. 

A shock so sudden and dreadful, and entailing hard- 
ships which had been unknown for generations to my 


12 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


Sybarite race, it touched directly at the fountain of 
life. And although the wound remained concealed 
by the splendid but short-lived vigor of my physique, 
it had undermined not the less surely because so 
silently; and when sorrow laid steady siege, the 
foundation suddenly gave way, and lapsed into irre- 
mediable ruin. 

The democracy have but little after all to envy in 
their bluer-blooded brethren, did they but realize the 
supreme balance of the universal system, w T hich takes 
away in proportion as it gives, and thus preserves the 
equipoise intact. They envy the porcelain its fineness 
without considering that in the nature of things it is 
exposed to dangers, such as its hardier wedgewood and 
ironstone neighbors never know. 

The long flight of years which has filled the halls 
of the noblesse with honors and riches, and written 
their names broadly on the history of their times, has 
just as surely sapped their vitality and diminished 
their numbers, and left them with trains of diseases as 
well as honors, channels of suffering as well as wealth, 
and if they have written their name upon many a roll 
of fame, it has been as often inscribed for them on 
the sexton’s register and the mad-house lists. 

And yet it is much, very much, to come of a race 
whose jqere name stirs the blood to deeds of honor 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


13 


and cliivalric em prize ; to point down the vista of 
vanished years and claim, in the shapes that stand 
forth most bright and distinct, the shade of a grand- 
sire, and a grandsire’s sire ; and to know that, although 
their dust has mingled with Mother Earth for centuries 
perhaps, still the world is the better for their lives. 

The American Jefferson’s declaration that all men 
are bom equal (if he spoke it in the spirit which 
demagogue orators declare, but which I do not insult 
the memory of so profound a thinker by believing), is 
easier of refutation than the fundamental principle 
of a great state-paper should be. 

Equal, in the sight of God, beyond a doubt they are ; 
but in the eyes of their fellow-men* in the work they 
do in the world, in the footprints they leave in life’s 
pathway, equal they are not. Blood makes a differ- 
ence, and blood will tell. A man who is born a 
gentleman, and realizes it, will fill every station in 
life, from the highest to the lowest, better than if he 
had been born a hind. ’Tis the blooded horse who 
dies upon the race-path or under the saddle ere he 
will flinch from what is expected of him, wdfile 
neither spur nor lash can urge the roadster from his 
usual pace. 

In these principles I was reared, until they pene- 
trated every fibre of my being. I was an aristocrat by 


14 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


birth, theory, and principle, and I could have easier 
parted with my life than stain it with' one action 
unw r orthy of the race from which I sprang. And yet 
it was from none of the self-sufficient arrogance of the 
Spanish hidalgo ; I did not think that I was in any- 
wise better than my fellow-men, I only felt that 
because I was a Tressylian everything high-toned and 
honorable was expected of me. This have I written 
in no spirit of proud boasting, for ere many moons 
wax and wane the last of the Tressylians — the sole 
scion of that knightly house — will be lying as low as 
the most unlettered knave who ever wrote his name 
with a x mark; but because this slight resume of 
family history will explain some portions of my 
narrative which might otherwise appear overstrained 
or obscure. 

This unlocking of prison-doors, and setting free the 
ghosts who were chained therein, has unnerved me 
more than I dreamed it would. There were so many 
skeletons of the past lying in the way, which stirred 
my soul to its utmost depths, that I can but outline 
them ; I dare not trust myself to reclothe them in all 
the freshness and beauty that erstwhile they wore. 
And this is from no latent infidelity to present ties ; 
only from that instinctive shrinking from flames in 
which w^e once were score! led. 



CHAPTER II. 

The end came at length, after three days of ago- 
nizing suspense; and although it was what I had 
dreaded from the first, when the blow actually fell 
it seemed to have all the awful suddenness of an 
unthought-of calamity. 

My dear father — how hard it was to give him up ! 
to see the clear blue eyes closed, and the firm lips 
so rigidly set, and know that they would never smile 
upon me again ; that henceforth I must learn to live 
without his love — we who had been such companions, 
so very, very intimate. Ah, me! the agony of that 
parting will never be overpast. But three days 
before I had parted so gaily from him, as he rode 
off in all the pride and vigor of full manhood, and 
in less than an hour he was brought home, crushed, 
bleeding, and speechless. His horse, in attempting 
to leap a fence, had fallen upon him, and some inter- 
nal injury was inflicted which baffled human skill. 


16 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


He never spoke or evinced the least consciousness, 
and, after three days of agonized watching and wait- 
ing, and passionate hoping against hope, we stood 
beside him in the gray hush of dawn, as he lay so 
rigid and motionless, and knew, with that strange, 
dumb agony of a realized dread, that what we greatly 
feared had come upon us. 

* * * * * 

Mamma, always feeble, completely broke down ; 
and I had all the care and responsibility to assume, 
at a time when my sole wish was to be at his side all 
the while he was left to us, and afterwards to be let 
alone. I was compelled, however, to rouse myself ; 
and, trying as it then was, doubtless in the end it was 
better that it had been so. 

When the affairs of the estate came to be investi- 
gated, it was evident that the death of my beloved 
father was not the only loss which we were called 
upon to sustain. The whole property was hopelessly 
involved ; and when the debts were all liquidated, as 
mamma and I instantly decided they should be, 
there would be nothing left for our support. There 
had been woful carelessness of all business affairs on 
my dear father’s part, and gross fraud and mismanage- 
ment on the part of his agents ; and everything was 
wrecked. It matters but little how it was all brought 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


17 


about — ruin to us was the irremediable result, and 
at seventeen I found myself the sole dependence of 
a widowed and invalid mother. Completely ignorant 
of the ways of the world, — proud, sensitive, and im- 
pulsive, — -the position was one whose duties I was 
ill fitted to fulfill ; but I assumed them with a brave 
heart and steadfast will. To my inexperienced mind 
the future did not look more overcast because I would 
have to earn all that we spent. Reared in the lap 
of luxury, how could I dream what woful significance 
lies in the words poverty and want? Warm friends 
came to us with words of sympathy and love, and the 
hearty kindness shown to us in those dark days did 
much to neutralize their pain. 

’Twas many weeks before our pecuniary affairs 
were finally adjusted. The property had passed by 
private sale into other hands, and at the expiration 
of the month we were to give possession. The 
purchaser took the Hall as it stood ; furniture, paint- 
ings, china, and plate were all included in the bill 
of sale; and a retired ship-chandler was owner of 
the halls where a Stuart had slept, and heroes had 
been born and died. Despite his kindness and liber- 
ality, for he showed us much of both, it galled me 
sorely that such a man should rule as master in my 
father’s home. And I thought if our successor had 


18 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


only been a gentleman I could have given up my 
beautiful home with less reluctance. 

The establishment had been reduced to the small- 
est possible scale ; and of our late magnificence 
nothing remained to us but such articles of furniture 
as were indispensable to the plainest housekeeping. 
Our plans for the future were very simple. We 
were to remove to Exham, a beautiful and retired 
village on the coast, and I would take pupils in 
music and the languages, which, in addition to the 
few hundreds that might be left us, would furnish us 
a moderate support. 

Mr. Percival, the rector of our parish, and our best 
friend, had taken the management of our business 
into his own hands, and we were indebted to him for 
much active kindness. He went in person to Exham, 
secured the promise of a number of pupils for me, 
and obtained for us the use of a beautiful cottage 
belonging to the De Yere estate, at an almost nomi- 
nal rent. Indeed, had it not been for him we would 
have fared badly. Mamma had neither the ability nor 
will to transact any business, and I, though willing 
enough, was hopelessly ignorant on all points. And, 
involved as our affairs had become, it took both skill 
and courage to unravel the tangles. 



CHAPTER III. 

At length the dreaded close of our residence at 
Tressylian Hall arrived. 

Mr. Percival was to accompany us to our new 
home, and Nurse Becky — dear, faithful soul — had 
folded her sturdy arms across her broad breast and 
avowed her unalterable determination to follow us to 
the Land’s End, if need be. No representations of 
our poverty, or remonstrances against her sacrificing 
herself for us, would avail to turn her from her pur- 
pose. She had but one reply to make to all my 
expostulations : “ It’s no use, Miss Helen,” she would 
say, “ telling me such things ; my mind is made up, 
and the Lord Mayor of London could not change it. 
If you have lost all your fortune through the wicked- 
ness of other people, you are no more able to wait on 
yourselves now than you were when you had a 
servant for each hour in the day. And it stands to 
reason that I, who have served your family all the 


20 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


days of my life, as my people all did before me, will 
do more and better for you than some new-fangled 
girl, who might know naught of gentlefolks’ ways, or 
how to make up a bed fit for my honored mistress to 
lay her blessed head upon, to say nothing of a decent 
slice of toast, and clear-starching.” And to this un- 
assailable position she betook herself, and no argu- 
ment was strong enough to dislodge her. 

Dear nurse ! faithful and true ! I raise my eyes as 
I write these words, and they rest upon your kindly, 
furrowed face, smiling fondly upon me as in the days 
of my happy childhood; and I cling to you with 
such infinite tender yearning, as the last living link 
which binds me to the memories of the past. And I 
pity you so deeply, because, much as you have borne 
with me, there looms up in the horizon a sorrow that 
I must cause your faithful heart to bear, when I 
shall be able to soften its sharpness by neither word 
nor sign. 

* * * * * 

The last day at home ! how can I paint its wretch- 
edness ? Mamma lay all day in her darkened chamber, 
while I wandered from room to room and kissed each 
dear dumb thing from which it was so hard to part. 
I walked all over the grounds and gazed through 
blinding tears at the familiar haunts of my childhood, 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


21 


turning from each with the hitter thought that I 
would never gaze upon it more. If the house had 
only been dismantled it would not have been so hard ; 
but to see everything in its accustomed place, the 
books and albums lying on the tables, the pictures 
hanging on the walls, the rich vases filled with flowers, 
all so natural and home-like, and yet all so changed 
to us who were doomed to go forth in hopeless exile 
from it, our ancient home. It seemed to me as if I 
could not bear it. I clenched my hands and grew 
rigid in the intensity of my pain, until the musical 
chiming of the hall clock seemed to break the ten- 
sion binding heart and brain, and I sank upon the 
floor in a passion of tears and wept until the tears 
refused to flow. We Tressylians had become lichens 
from long growing in one place, and when we were 
wrenched apart many a fibre broke and bled. 

Early the next morning, in a chill, gray fog, the car- 
riage drew up before the door, and we rose from our 
untasted breakfast to depart. The servants were stand- 
ing weeping in the hall, and as we passed out, they 
bade us good-bye with mingled tears and blessings. I 
drew my heavy veil close over my face,. to hide the 
beloved scenes through which we were passing, and 
pressed my fingers desperately in my ears, to shut out 
the sound of the lodge gate as it closed forever upon 


22 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


us. Mamma sat calm and motionless, a slight rigidity 
in her face and attitude the only sign of the pang it 
cost her to leave the home of her happy wedded life. 

I breathed more freely when we were out of the 
demesne ; and when we at last reached the station, 
and were locked into the coach that was to convey us 
to our new home, I felt, with a sense of positive relief, 
that the worst was over. Mr. Percival intrenched 
himself behind the ample folds of the morning Times , 
and read unremittingly for several hours, long, I was 
sure, after he had exhausted all articles of interest. At 
last, seeing him glance wearily down an already well- 
read column, I said, “ Suppose you lay it aside, and 
tell me something of our new home.” He laid the 
paper away with evident relief, hut refused to tell me 
aught of Exham. “ Ho, my dear, you will soon be 
there, and, expecting nothing definite, there will be 
less risk of disappointment.” And to such sound 
reasoning I opposed no farther request. 

A carriage was waiting for us at Exham station, and 
just as the sun was dipping his golden disc into the 
glowing sea of rosy western clouds, we drove through 
the pretty, picturesque village to Pose Cottage. E very- 
thing in the village looked so trim and thrifty, that 
my spirits began to rise above a dead level, and when 
we stopped before the small but very pretty cottage, 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


23 


which was to be our future home, I looked about me 
with positive interest. A neat, gravelled, box-edged 
walk, led through a small yard beautifully set with 
turf, and glowing with plots and borders of bright- 
colored' flowers, to a low-eaved porch, over which a 
wilderness of vines and creeping roses grew in tan- 
gled luxuriance. Nurse Becky, who had gone down 
the day before with the boxes, opened the door for us, 
and the tears sprang into my eyes at the sight of her 
kind familiar face. 

Mr. Percival, entering first, turned as we crossed 
the threshold, and said heartily, 

“ Welcome to your new home, my dear friends, and 
may the blessing of the widow’s and the orphan’s 
God rest upon it for your sakes.” 

A prettily-sized hall opened upon a wide passage 
which traversed the house, with two rooms on either 
side. The first one we entered was to he our sitting- 
room, and, as I raised my eyes, the first object upon 
which they rested was my dear father’s portrait ; and 
a farther survey revealed all the furniture of what had 
been our favorite morning-room at Tressylian Hall. 

“ How can I thank you, sir ? ” I said, turning to 
Mr. Percival with brimming eyes. 

“ Why, my dear, by saying no more about it, I 
believe,” was his smiling response. 


24 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


He showed us through the house, which every- 
where bore the same touching evidences of his 
thoughtfulness, and when our tour of inspection 
was ended, nurse brought in the tray of tea. Despite 
mamma’s and Mr. Percival’s efforts, the meal was a 
sad one. To see the familiar service in such a strange, 
new place, was a trial that I could bear only by keep- 
ing silent. To speak would have been likewise to 
weep, and, shamed by mamma’s brave composure, 
I did not wish to christen our coming home with 
tears. I was not to occupy mamma’s chamber, so 
when I retired I had full license to cry at will, and 
like a child, as in truth I was, I wept myself to sleep. 

The next morning, after an early breakfast, Mr. 
Percival left us. I restrained my grief until I saw 
him turn from the door, and then I felt that we were 
parting with our only friend, and I fell upon his neck 
weeping and heart-broken. He gently hushed and 
comforted me, and when my clinging fingers relaxed 
their hold, and my passionate sobs sank into quiver- 
ing sighs, he softly unclasped my hands, and kissing 
me on either cheek, strode rapidly away, turning ever 
and anon, as long as the cottage was in sight, to wave 
me a cheery good-bye. 

True servant of the most high God ! were all the 
dressers of thy Master’s vineyard more like thee, there 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


25 


would be fewer vines barren, fewer that bring forth 
wild grapes. Faithful shepherd that thou wert, going 
forth to seek that which was astray or lost, binding up 
the broken, and gently, aye, gently , leading thy flock 
towards the heights of Heaven. Humbly didst thou 
labor, bearing alone the burden and heat of the day, 
and now thou restest in the shadow of thine appointed 
place, far from the white cliffs of Albion, beside the 
dreaming waters of the Mediterranean, beneath the 
sunny blue of Italy’s bright skies. Stranger hands 
laid thee to thy dreamless rest, strange skies arch over 
thee, but He who giveth His beloved sleep knows 
where He lays them down, and in the fullness of the 
appointed time the Master’s voice will rouse thee from 
thy slumbers, and bid thee, oh, faithful servant, to 
“ enter into the jov of thy Lord.” 




CHAPTER IY. 

The village of Exham was small and sparsely set- 
tled, for though its nearness to the sea made it a pop- 
ular summer resort, the same proximity rendered it 
bleak and unpleasant during the rest of the year. Our 
reasons for selecting it as a residence were manifold. 
Eirst, the climate agreed wonderfully well with 
mamma, who had spent several summers there in her 
early married life. Secondly, it was retired and ob- 
scure, and in it we could be of the world forgetful 
and by the world forgot. Thirdly, it was a very 
cheap market, a consideration of no small weight with 
people like ourselves, whose castles were all in Spain, 
and whose rent-rolls were airy nothings. And lastly, 
several of Mr. Percival’s friends were spending the 
summer in the village, and being the happy mothers 
of numerous small responsibilities, they had promised 
me their patronage during their sojourn. 

Of society permanent, Exham could boast of but 


SALTED WITH FIRE . 


27 


little, and that little was very uncongenial to us. The 
sole noble family that it laid claim to had been absen- 
tees for many years, and there was no prospect of 
their returning in as many more. All of the cream 
of the society called upon us soon after our arrival, 
but our deep mourning, and mamma’s continued in- 
disposition, prevented anything like sociability, even 
if I had felt inclined to participate in their enjoy- 
ments. And thus, with very little trouble, we gained 
the unenviable reputation of being “ proud and scorn- 
ful ; ” and ere long we came to be dropped from the 
visiting lists of the Exham exclusives. This at the 
time inflicted no pain upon me. I could not like the 
people : they were thoroughly uncongenial : a new 
revelation of humanity : and I found the cessation of 
their well-meant civilities a positive relief. I had not 
then discovered that the employment of a laborer 
depends more upon his popularity than his intrinsic 
worth. 

I was proud. I could not stoop, without a visible 
effort, to the low level of their minds and ambitions. 
I could not listen, breathless with curiosity, to the 
scandal and gossip of the village, nor interest myself 
in the private life, the daily sayings and doings, of 
my neighbors. I could not lend the young females 
any new patterns, or teach them “ any new stitches.” 


28 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


I could on no occasion or invitation tease them about 
their positive or supposititious lovers ; nor could I sub- 
mit, without manifest reluctance, to have my raiment 
not only closely inspected and openly commented 
upon, but actually priced ! And I could not receive, 
with smiling complacency or bridling coquetry, the 
coarsely-expressed admiration and vulgar attentions 
of the over-dressed and under-bred young men. 

When we came to Exham, the news of our being 
reduced gentlewomen had preceded us, and the com- 
munity, by common consent, had resolved to patronize 
us. But patronage was not exactly to our taste, and 
when we persistently declined all overtures tending 
thitherward (which, I must own, was oftener done by 
me with flushed cheeks and lifted crest than with 
mamma’s cool, high-bred composure), we came, in the 
estimation of the villagers, to merit the bestowal of 
that epithet which, in the vocabulary of the middle 
classes, bears a sort of plague-smitten significance — 
we were “proud.” Consequently, we were to be 
“ snubbed ” and slighted, in season and out of season, 
through the charitable (Heaven save the mark) design 
of “ taking us down,” as some of the fraternity ele- 
gantly phrased it. The absurdity ! A Tressylian 
humbled by the petty slights and rudeness of village 
parvenus / 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


29 


I laughed with genuine merriment over the first 
of these exhibitions ; but, after some bitter lessons, I 
found that, if it was impossible for a Tressylian to be 
humbled by such people, they nevertheless had it in 
their power to make the descendants of that haughty 
house suffer many an unimagined privation. You see, 
as I said before, I did not know then that our daily 
bread depended on the favor of these people, whose 
ill-will I had excited, certainly with no malice pre- 
pense, but also as certainly with very little compunc- 
tion. Had I been acquainted with that important 
fact, doubtless, for mamma’s sake, my haughty head 
would have bent more humbly to receive the crown 
of thorns which it was destined to wear. 

At first my success in obtaining pupils was all that 
I could wish. While the summer visitors remained 
I had as many as I could teach, and my intercourse 
with their lady mothers was pleasant and congenial. 
The close of the season speedily taught me how much 
I had been indebted to them for the possession of 
current funds. 

I had been offered the situation of governess by 
several of the ladies for whom I had been teaching, 
but I could accept no situation that would separate 
me from mamma. And when my summer friends 


30 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


departed, summer friends tliey proved to be, for I 
never saw or heard from them again. 

The months slowly wore away. I had but little 
local patronage, and for that little I was indebted to 
my moderate terms. My pupils were all unlovable, 
and oh, what weary work it was, — day after day, the 
same monotonous routine. Inducting thick cockney 
tongues into the liquid mysteries of the soft Italian 
and musical Spanish languages: enduring a vulgar 
English accent and detestable grammar through page 
after page of interminable French exercises. But 
these afflictions were light compared to the auricular 
agony of the music lessons. I w^as passionately fond 
of music, and possessed a nervously sensitive ear, and 
I had to contend, not only with native ill-taste and 
inharmoniousness, but with the most vicious faults of 
style, imparted by some thousandth-rate instructor. 

I had to go to my pupils, and they all lived at 
inconvenient distances from me and from each other. 
I was away from home nearly all day, and as our 
means did not warrant the hiring of any style of con- 
veyance, I was often exposed to the extreme of fatigue 
and bad weather. At first it was all very trying, but, 
in a certain sense, it was good for me. The necessity 
for such active and distracting exertion drew my 
thoughts away from myself, and prevented my falling 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


31 


into a state of morbid depression to which, by tem- 
perament and circumstances, I was prone. And the 
unfailing delight of mamma and Nurse Becky each 
evening at my return, kept me humanized and gen- 
tle, and saved me from brooding morbidly over the 
rudeness and dislike so constantly exhibited towards 
me by my scholars, few, if any, of whom really liked 
me. Parrot-like, they caught up the words of their 
elders, and repeated them with sundry juvenile and 
malicious additions, rarely or never addressed directly 
to me, for the most of them held me in no little awe, 
but said to one another in places where I must needs 
overhear them. And although never a voluntary list- 
ener, I none the less verified the old adage ; and had 
my ears been made of inflammable material they 
would have subjected me to a conflagration very soon 
after my assumption of the duties of that much-put- 
upon and enduring individual, a daily governess ; or, 
as my lady patroness, Mrs. Green, styled me, “the 
young woman who did the children’s French and 
music.” Had she said the victim who, by stress of 
fortune, endured the children’s French and music, she 
would have phrased it more accurately. But accuracy 
was a foible which Mrs. Green disdained. Weak- 
minded folk, who had the fear of God and man before 
their eyes, might limit themselves to strict veracity, 


32 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


and forswear exaggeration in all its hydra-headed 
forms ; but what advantage was it to have a ready, 
inventive faculty and an unscrupulous tongue, if one 
never said anything more than their neighbors ? Thus 
the matter presented itself to this strong-minded 
female, and that she acted upon her convictions one 
day I proved to my cost. 




CHAPTER Y. 

Autumn deepened into winter’s dreariness ; and 
one morning, a cold, raw, drizzling day in December, 
just as I was preparing to start out on my daily 
rounds, the postman brought us an express letter, 
announcing the extreme illness of our beloved Mr. 
Percival. This news was a bad invigorator for a day 
of trying work, and when I reached my first pupil I 
found that I was half an hour late. 

An ill wind blew for me that day, and everything 
went wrong. The lessons were all badly prepared ; 
the children more than usually trying ; and, before I 
started to my last place, a blinding, nervous headache 
came on to fill up the measure of my woe. The pupil 
to whom I was then going was my particular aver- 
sion. She was the very impersonation of all that is 
most displeasing in upstartism, utterly unchildlike, 
and unbearably common and uninteresting. Her 

mother was the queen of Exham society, the rich 
2 * 


84 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


widow of a retired pork-dealer; coarse, vulgar, and 
overbearing, tlie very sight of her was odious. From 
the first there had been an armed neutrality main- 
tained between us, destined this day to break out into 
open hostility. Instead of being shown into the 
school-room, as usual on my arrival, the maid asked 
me into the back parlor, where Mrs. Green stood in 
awful majesty, surrounded by an admiring crowd of sat- 
ellites, composed of the one footman, the two maids, 
the cook, poor relation, and six interesting olive- 
branches, all gathered, as I soon discovered, to enjoy 
the thoroughly English pastime of baiting a governess. 
My salutation was received with silent disdain, and 
Mrs. Green sounded the attack by saying, crushingly, 

“ Do you know, ma’am, that you are one hour be- 
hind your regular time ? ” 

“ Yes,” I replied, with audacious serenity ; “ I was 
detained at home rather later than usual this morning.” 

My composure acted like water on Greek fire, and 
she blazed out : 

“ Well, miss, I don’t approve of this here plan ; I 
don’t think it’s respectable — (doubtless the good wo- 
man meant respectful) — in a public servant — such, I 
take it, a paid governess is — to keep them as hires her 
a-waiting a whole hour to take a lesson as they pays 
lawful money for.” 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


35 


She paused here to take a satisfactory survey of my 
annihilated condition, thus charged upon by horse, 
foot, and dragoon, and perhaps to rally her forces for 
another attack. 

The Tressylian temper was rising hotly ; the 
woman’s manner was so insulting, and the audible 
tittering of children and servants did not serve very 
materially in restoring my equanimity. I opened my 
portemonnaie and took out five guineas, saying, with 
uncontrollable haughtiness, 

“ After to-day I was to have given Miss Green four 
lessons. Permit me to pay you five guineas for the 
privilege of discontinuing the lessons altogether, and 
at the same time terminating our acquaintance very 
decidedly.” 

I laid the money before her as I spoke, and, bowing 
profoundly, turned and left the room. She rushed 
after me, pouring out a torrent of invective as long 
as I was in sight. 

Blinded by indignant tears, I did not notice what 
direction I took until I had gone more than a square 
out of my way. And when E turned to retrace 
my steps, I found that the rain, which had been 
falling all day, had changed into a storm; the 
wind was blowing heavily, and the rain freezing 
as it fell. The comfort of my long walk was not 


36 


SALTED WITII FIRE. 


heightened by this elemental outbreak, for the wind 
drove the rain in blinding sheets full in my face, 
making it almost impossible for me to keep my feet 
or see my way. More than once I had to anchor by 
a lamp-post to catch my breath and regain my waver- 
ing balance ; and at last, reeling under the shock of 
an unusually fierce blast, just as I turned a corner I 
struck against some object, and would have fallen hut 
for the outstretched arms of the obstacle, which proved 
to he a gentleman, who said, courteously, 

“ I beg your pardon, madam, and sincerely hope 
you are not hurt.” 

“ Not in the least, sir,” I said, as I withdrew from 
his arm. But if I was not hurt, I was thoroughly 
exhausted, and as soon as his supporting arm was re- 
moved I reeled to and fro. 

“ Pray accept my arm again; this storm is too 
severe for a lady to brave alone, and I shall be very 
happy if you will allow me to see you safely sheltered 
from its violence before I leave you.” 

His tone was so courteous, and I so conscious of my 
inability to reach home unaided, that I said, 

“ If you will be so kind as to see me to Bose Cot- 
tage, sir, I shall accept your offer very gratefully.” 

“ With the greatest pleasure, madam. I presume I 
have the honor of addressing Miss Tressylian?” 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


37 


“Yes, sir,” was all the response for which I had 
breath. 

“ And I am Dr. Charles Stuart, very much at youi 
service, now or at any future time,” he answered, 
pleasantly. 

The storm was now raging furiously, and our walk 
was terrible. Sustained by his strong arm and shel- 
tered by his tall form, I could scarcely preserve my 
equilibrium, and sometimes, when we crossed a street, 
he more than half carried me in his arms. We 
reached home at last, I completely exhausted, and 
both of us nearly frozen. I was drenched with rain, 
but Dr. Stuart, wrapped in India-rubber leggings and 
a thick waterproof, had escaped that evil. His water- 
proof cloak had been “ a bone of contention” between 
us the whole way. Whenever we reached a sheltered 
corner, where I could hold on to a wall while he 
divested himself of it, he would insist upon wrap- 
ping me in it, and I as pertinaciously refused to permit 
any such gallant self-sacrifice. lie accepted my invi- 
tation to come in and shelter himself for the night 
from the raging storm which was momentarily in- 
creasing; and while he paused in the hall to lay 
aside his wrappings I went at once into the sitting- 
room to relieve mamma’s anxiety. Dr. Stuart came in 
soon after, and I had just presented him to mamma 


38 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


when the heat of the room, combined with my pre- 
vions agitation and fatigue, overcame me, and I lapsed 
into insensibility. The swoon was a brief one, and 
immediately upon my recovery I was summarily put 
to bed, given a composing draught, and ordered to 
keep quiet — a command that I was ready to obey, for 
I was one throbbing pulse of pain, and the one wish 
that I was conscious of entertaining was a longing for 
profound darkness and silence. 

The next morning I was too ill to rise, and found 
myself regularly booked as a patient for my chance- 
made acquaintance, Dr. Stuart. 

My illness held me a prisoner for two weeks — no 
inconsiderable loss of time to a daily governess, and 
in the end destined to prove irreparable; for 1 lost 
my pupils as well. My magnanimous enemy, Mrs. 
Green, lost no time in publishing the story of my 
enormities, garnished with all the coloring and embel- 
lishments that her very exuberant and by no means 
fastidious fancy could supply. The story grew and 
throve ; the black spot spread and widened until my 
moral aspect wore a hue of Satanic darkness. The 
whole community got ready in righteous haste to 
wash their hands of such a wretch as I had proved to 
be ; and when I was well enough to resume my duties 
I had no duties to resume. Some of my patrons 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


39 


were “not at home” when I called, and “begged that 
X would not trouble myself to come again others 
“ would send me word when they were ready for me 
and a few told me rudely that they had no use for 
“ such as I.” Like the wedding guests in the parable, 
each one had some excuse at hand, and one went to 
his farm, and another to his merchandise, and all left 
the hapless strangers whom God had placed in their 
midst, to starve or not, as they could compromise with 
fate and that sternest of necessities, an empty purse. 
I made light of the loss to mamma, and prophesied that 
ere long they would return to their senses and their 
governess alike, though privately I entertained very 
faint hopes of any such felicitous event. I say felici- 
tous, because, although I had found teaching very dis- 
agreeable, I found it far more unpleasant to do no- 
thing, when that also meant to make nothing. 

But while Mahomet was waiting for the mountain 
to change its nature and come to him, he could not 
afford to be idle ; and I, personating the Prophet for 
the nonce, was fain to turn my hand to something 
else. I therefore took out my long-disused ease] and 
portfolio, and began to paint a series of local pictures, 
which nurse took to the bookseller’s and exposed for 
sale. But my pictures, though pretty and well- 

painted (for my artistic talents had been carefully 
2 * 


40 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


cultivated), pleased tlie community as little as my 
manners, and remained unsold for many a long day. 
And, when finally purchased, it was not to Exham 
liberality or taste that I was indebted, but to the 
friendship of my good friend, Dr. Stuart, who merits 
a far more elaborate notice at my hands than he has 
yet received, or than my poor powers can bestow 
upon his many virtues. 



* 



CHAPTER VI. 

Dr. Charles Edward Stuart was, as his name 
indicates, of Scottish birth, and collaterally descended 
from the kingly, but hapless house, whose name he 
bore so worthily and well ; for no Stuart who ever 
filled the throne, knightly as many of them were, 
ever covered a more kingly heart beneath his royal 
robes than beat in the breast of that stainless gentle- 
man whose name I write. 

He had been educated as a physician, but the early 
death of his older brother rendered him independent 
of all need of personal exertion for his' support. A 
marked talent for the profession, however, led him to 
practise it con amove , and he was a not undistin- 
guished practitioner, both at home and abroad. His 
residence had been in London, where he gave up 
much of his time to hospital practice, and over devo- 
tion to his duties had produced in him such physical 
and nervous depression, that he did that rare thing 


42 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


for a medical man to do — put himself in the hands 
of a brother Galen for treatment, and actually used 
the remedies prescribed; which demanded, among 
other things, a total abandonment of professional life 
for at least two years, and an unlimited quantity of 
sea-bathing and mental rest. 

Acting in conformity to this advice, Dr. Stuart 
purchased a lovely residence near Exham, and devoted 
himself to sea-bathing, and not a little to the care of 
sick bodies, and in many cases sick souls, amid the 
poor of the neighborhood. 

His wealth made him the target for all the matri- 
monial shafts that scheming mammas and ambitious 
daughters could level at him, hut he had attained his 
thirtieth year with his peace of mind undisturbed by 
any of the fair ones arrayed against him. 

With the poor and unfortunate he was universally 
a favorite, for no appeal to his charity was ever made 
in vain. Indeed, his was one of those % rare, fine 
natures, that high and low, rich and poor, alike turn 
to and trust in ; his charity was so broad and deep, 
his soul so pure and guileless. He was not hand- 
some, in the ordinary sense of the term, but his face 
was one which women and children trusted intui- 
tively. His large, clear eyes, set under a broad, fair 
brow, and with such a frank, true expression in their 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


43 


violet depths, were the only beautiful feature in his 
face, except indeed his mouth, whose firm, delicate 
outlines gave you at once an idea of mingled strength 
and sweetness! His well-shaped head was covered 
with thick, curling, brown hair, and his tall, sinewy 
form was well built and symmetrical. But it was in 
his expression that his chief beauty lay. Hever had 
a woman blushed beneath his gaze, or felt that she 
could not trust implicitly to the purity of his noble 
manhood ; a purity that shone in his dark violet eyes, 
and rested in the delicate curves of his lips and cheek, 
whose fine oval was clearly cut and sharply outlined 
from his neck; with none of the full, sensual melting 
of one into the other, that marks the grosser type of 
men ; and yet he was essentially masculine, brave, 
tender, and true-hearted. He was not brilliant intel- 
lectually, though he was a deep thinker and a close 
student ; not fascinating, but better than either, true. 
You would never be deceived by him, never disap- 
pointed in him ; what he seemed to be he was ; and in 
this world of trickery and time-serving, I take it 
there is no higher praise to be bestowed. 

His religion was as simple as a child’s, and as pro- 
found as the source from which it sprang. To fear 
God, to visit the sick and afflicted, and to keep him- 
self unspotted from the world, was the rule of his 


44 


SALTED WITH FILE. 


faith and practice. Like Benhadad of old, he proved 
that he loved God by loving his fellow-men. A 
noble, Christian gentleman ! would that the world 
held more like him ! 

With such a man, our informal acquaintance was 
not long in ripening into actual friendship. He 
visited us constantly, and his presence made the sun- 
shine of our cloudy lives. His royal blood insured 
him staunch adherents in Tressylians. And if Stuart 
blood was cold and ungrateful in by-gone times, years 
had worn off those blemishes, and left only the fine, 
high traits that instinctively we attribute to a noble 
and kingly race. 




CHAPTER YII. 

The news from our friend Mr. Percival continued 
to be very distressing. His illness had been so severe, 
that as soon as he could travel, his physicians ordered 
him abroad, and so all hope of aid and counsel from 
him was at an end, and our affairs were fast becoming 
hopelessly involved. The purse, unreplenished since 
my illness, was getting alarmingly low ; and although 
how to refill it was a problem that I nightly gave 
myself to solve, each morning would find it still in- 
volved in hopeless obscurity. One evening, Dr. Stuart 
called to say good-bye, as he was going to London for 
a short visit. A sudden inspiration seized me, and 
when he rose to go, I said, as the evening was tempt- 
ingly fine, I would accompany him a short distance. 
It took but a moment for me to add a hat and gloves 
to my costume, and soon we were out of sight of the 
cottage. 

I never had the cowardice or patience — whichever 


46 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


it is — to defer a necessary evil. Whatever I had to 
endure, I wanted to take at once ; and so, with a 
hot flush of mingled pride and shame upon my cheek, 
I said abruptly, 

“I did not come out for a walk, Dr. Stuart: I 
have a favor to ask of you.” 

I stopped as abruptly as I had begun. It was so 
hard, after all, to tell him what I wanted. If he 
saw my pain and embarrassment, he was too kind to 
notice it, and answered with his usual gentle courtesy, 

“ Anything, Miss Helen, that lies in my power, I 
will take the greatest pleasure in doing for you. 
What is it that I am to have the honor of serving 
you in ? ” 

“You will not find it much of an honor,” I said, 
with a faint smile. “ I wish you to place this in the 
hands of some jeweller, to be disposed of for me.” 

I placed in his hands, as I spoke, a small mother-of 
pearl box containing a beautiful diamond ring, my 
dear father’s last birthday-gift to me, and which had 
seemed too precious to part with when I gave up the 
rest of my jewels. He looked at me in some surprise, 
and said : “ Shall it be disposed of at once ? ” “ As 

soon as possible,” I said quickly, and then added, 
after a moment’s pause — 

“We are, unfortunately, under the necessity of 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


47 


living, Dr. Stuart. I can get nothing to do, and 
therefore have no means of supplying wants wdiich 
will arise despite their inconvenience. I shall never 
wear jewels again, so the ring had better be converted 
into something that will prove a cement for the souls 
and bodies, which otherwise are in some jeopardy of 
being forced to dissolve copartnership.” 

The smile with which I spoke was contradicted by 
a tear I could not repress ; and as I turned away to 
hide another and another, Dr. Stuart took my hand 
with kindly sympathy as he said : 

“ I will not prove unworthy of the confidence you 
honor me by placing in me, and you may depend 
upon my doing all I can to forward your wishes.” 

He said good-bye, and though I watched him walk 
away through tears, I turned home with a lighter 
heart than had beat in my bosom for many a weary 
day. 

Alas ! what humiliation it is to feel how completely 
the material overbalances the spiritual in our daily 
life ; how the lack of means to supply mere bodily 
wants can depress the whole being. Ho intellectu- 
ality, no philosophy, will sustain the sinking heart 
with which we count over our slender store, and find 
it all insufficient to supply the pressing needs, w T hen 
some helpless and beloved object is to share with us 


48 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


the privation thus entailed. To bear our own suffer- 
ing takes only a little fortitude — the flesh is easily 
subdued when the will decrees it ; but to teach the 
loving heart to submit is a far harder task. The dry 
morsel that you could eat with indifference were you 
alone to consume it, is washed down with bitter tears 
when you note the effort with which some dear one 
swallows it. And oh! the choking agony of those 
meals which no self-denial will render palatable or 
sufficient for our nursling. I have often thought how 
many channels of human woe would be staunched 
did we but possess the pelican’s fabled privilege of 
feeding our beloved ones with our blood. Ah ! how 
often would thrilling pulses joyfully be drained. But 
fate, with the refinement of cruelty, strikes us through 
them, well knowing that the keenest pain to us will 
be the sight of their sufferings which we are powerless 
to avert. A single effort of the will enables us to 
bear unflinchingly the quivering of the javelin in our 
own flesh; but what philosophy can teach us that 
stoicism when the dart finds our heart through the 
bosom of those we love ? 



CHAPTER YIII. 

A week of absence elapsed and Dr. Stuart returned 
and resumed bis friendly intercourse with us. At 
the close of bis first visit be placed a sealed en- 
velope in my hand, which contained a sum in crisp 
bank-notes that far exceeded my estimate of the value 
of the ring. Forthwith I flew to nurse to consult 
with her regarding its expenditure. We had grown 
to be great economists, nurse and I. She was prime- 
minister of the finance, and, I often thought, keeper 
of the privy-purse as well, for I was convinced that 
the small sums she received from me could never, 
unassisted, have accomplished all that she wrought 
with them. Poor nurse! she was so proud of me 
and for me, grieving constantly over my secluded 
life, chafing over my privations, and never for one 
moment allowing me to do anything beneath the 
dignity of “the family.” Any petty shopping that 

was to be clone she always undertook, finding on such 
3 


50 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


occasions an indispensable necessity for fresh air. But 
if the bill was a large one, or the purchase -some 
dainty trifle for mamma, then I must go. There was 
no appeal from the decision : nurse, by no system of 
arrangement, could make time to go herself. When- 
ever I could appear in the character of a lady of 
ample means and elegant leisure, nurse was not only 
willing but anxious that I should go forth and exhibit 
myself. But let there be the remotest danger of a 
lowering of the Tressylian crest, and then I was 
rigidly incarcerated. Dear, faithful soul! in that 
Better Land a crown of rejoicing surely waits for 
thee ! 

A few days after Dr. Stuart’s return, the rector of 
the parish, a strange, forbidding, solitary man, whose 
face had a sad history written in its cold, stern lines 
and fiery, hazel eyes, came to offer me the situation of 
organist in his church. He was a man of few words, 
and the arrangement was speedily made between us. 
But I did not know until long afterwards that the 
salary attached to the position was paid by my best 
of friends, Dr. Stuart, and then the discovery was 
the result of my accidentally finding one of the 
receipts among his papers. 



CHAPTEK IX. 

Spring crept slowly away, and summer had deep* 
ened into autumn, and I was still without employ- 
ment. Mr. Percival remained abroad, too shattered 
in health to attend to any business, and our affairs 
were rapidly approximating a state of such attenua- 
tion as forbade us to expect support from them. 
Mamma, from whom we rigidly kept all knowledge 
of our pecuniary difficulties, would often gently chide 
me for my grave face and urge me to walk out oftener, 
and I would force a smile and jest, when the ways 
and means of obtaining the next week’s supplies were 
involved in Cimmerian darkness. Piece by piece, the 
handsome articles of my wardrobe found their way 
into other hands, and thus we eked out a slender sub- 
sistence. 

Late in the autumn, Mr. Percival wrote to tell me 
of a ray of light that would dawn for me in the 
spring. A Mrs. Aubrey, the wife of the English 


52 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


minister at the Neapolitan court, had been ordered 
by her physicians to return to England to recruit her 
health, impaired by the excitement and strain of dip- 
lomatic life. She would arrive in the spring to take 
up her residence at Seaforth Court, the ancestral seat 
of her family, the De Yeres. My interest in these 
details proceeded from the fact that Mrs. Aubrey had 
a little daughter for whom she was desirous of obtain- 
ing the services of a first-rate governess, and Mr. 
Percival had recommended me in unmeasured terms 
to her. He did so the more readily because Mrs. 
Aubrey was a perfect lady, and the little girl very 
amiable and intelligent. This prospect relieved me 
of some of my anxiety for the future, though the 
present grew even darker than before. 

A change in the weather, combined with some 
slight imprudence, had given mamma a severe cold, 
which, instead of yielding to treatment, rapidly in- 
creased in violence, and culminated in inflammation 
of the lungs. She was desperately ill, and for weary 
weeks I hung despairingly over her, and prayed with 
wild entreaties for her life. After many days my 
prayers were granted, and she crept slowly back from 
the valley of the shadow of death ; and one day Dr. 
Stuart said to me, 

“ I have done all for your mother, Miss Helen, that 


SALTED WITH FIEE. 


53 


medicine can do. I must now leave lier in the hands 
of the cook.” 

I thought bitterly of onr empty store-room and 
exhausted purse, and memory swiftly reverted to the 
pantry at Tressylian Hall, where every luxury that 
fancy could demand or wealth procure was stored with 
such lavish abundance. And now the simplest deli- 
cacy, no matter how longingly craved, was unattain- 
able. Truly, “ the life of the poor is the curse of the 
heart,” as the wise king of Israel wrote long ago; 
and its bitter fidelity to nature I daily proved when 
the sternest self-denial, the most rigid economy that 
nurse and I could practise, did not avail to supply the 
many wants that illness and a fickle appetite entailed. 
Mamma gained no strength, and Dr. Stuart prescribed 
port wine. Tincture of rubies would have been 
nearly as attainable. I gave nurse some rare old lace 
which had lain on the snowy bosoms of the daughters 
of our house for countless generations, and was now 
my sole relic of better days, and bade her sell it, and 
buy the wine. Of course, our necessities were taken 
advantage of; a mere pittance was allowed for lace 
whose richness and antiquity made it worth more than 
its weight in gold, and, as a necessary sequence, a 
most indifferent article of wine had to be procured. 
On his next visit, I saw Dr. Stuart examine the bottle, 


54 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


and then set it down with an expression of dissatisfac- 
tion on his face. Shortly after he left his servant 
came, bringing two dozen bottles of superb wine, ac- 
companied by a very graceful note to mamma, begging 
her acceptance of what had been a present to himself, 
but, as he never used wine, he could only make it ser- 
viceable through the medium of his friends. A few 
days later he told me mamma needed the richest and 
most nourishing food to enable her to regain her 
strength. 

u Your suggestion is impracticable, sir,” I said, 
bitterly ; “ I have no means to procure such things.” 

“I beg your pardon,” he answered kindly; and 
that evening he rode over to bring a brace of phea- 
sants. And every day, for many weeks, he would 
either bring or send presents of game or fish. I was 
deeply grateful for his kindness, but oh ! it galled me 
so ! If it had not been for mamma, I could not have 
accepted such favors, even from his kind hand. 

The Exhamites were right, after all. I was proud. 
And instead of that uncanny quality being rubbed out 
by the grinding at the wheel of stern necessity to 
which fate subjected it, by way of moral suasion, it 
throve apace and grew stronger under its servitude. 
Like the rebel flower, it flourished most when most 
trampled down. 



CHAPTER X. 

Winter had vanished, and spring was jnst decking 
the earth with golden buttercups and blushing daisies, 
when the Daily Gazette announced, with a flourish 
of trumpets, the arrival of the Hon. Mrs. Aubrey, etc., 
etc., at Seaforth Court ; and two days later, a groom, 
in plain livery, brought me a note from the lady, re- 
questing me to call at my earliest leisure, as her state 
of health forbade her the pleasure of coming to me. 
The next morning was my “ earliest leisure,” and I 
arrayed myself in all the magnificence of shabby 
mourning, and prepared to set forth on my quest. 

I had been so long unused to society that I felt a 
nervous dread at the thought of facing strangers ; and 
mamma’s scrutinizing survey of my costume, and 
smothered sigh as she turned away, were not very 
reassuring. I knew I looked unfashionable, nay, even 
shabby ; for my mourning had never been renewed, 



56 


SALTED WITH FIDE. 


and now showed evident tokens of long service. I 
was not Cinderella, with a fairy godmother to come 
to the rescue and supply all deficiencies ; so I had to 
wear the rubbed bombazine and rusty crape, and trust 
to my being a lady to give it the needful style.' And 
so I kissed mamma with a gav, jaunty air, and set out 
on my walk with as cheerful a deportment as if I 
were the best dressed woman in England. 

The distance between Seaforth Court and Rose 
Cottage was not inconsiderable, but the road lay 
through a very pleasant country, and as I was a very 
rapid pedestrian, my fleet steps soon brought me to 
my destination. The grounds were ample and beauti- 
fully kept, and the house, large, ancient, and rising 
abruptly from the water’s edge, in sight and sound of 
the restless, moaning sea, was fall of charm and inter- 
est. It had been a castellated fortress in the olden 
time, and, perched on its craggy cliffs, had laughed to 
scorn many an attack by sea and land, and its stout 
defences had once sheltered the hapless Henrietta, as 
she fled with her children from the blood-stained 
murderers of the royal martyr. Full of pictures, 
tapestries, and memorials of by-gone ages and count- 
less generations, it was a treasure-house I was never 
weary of exploring, when I heard from lips, whose 
rich music lent them half their charm, the recital of 


8ALTED WITH FIRE. 


57 


daring deeds, devoted loves, and dark traditions, of 
tins old stronghold of the “ virtuous De Veres.” 

A servant met me as I approached the house, and 
showed me into a beautifully-furnished morning-room ; 
and, with the information that his mistress would join 
me directly, he withdrew. 

In a few moments Mrs. Aubrey made her appear- 
ance. She was a small and remarkably pretty woman, 
having about her the unmistakable air of good birth 
and good society. She was one of those warm-hearted, 
guileless little creatures who win you at sight ; with 
graceful, simple manners, touched with a dash of 
child-like dependence, that appealed at once to the heart 
of a stronger nature. We have all met that appealing 
helplessness, that clinging dependence, which seems 
to ask for strength and shelter in the love of a deeper 
soul. Such natures are very sweet and attractive. 
They are not capable, perhaps, of the silent endurance, 
the resolute self-sacrifice, which glorifies the lives of 
some women : they may not tread so unflinchingly 
the roughest pathways, or resign as unmurmuringly 
the glories of youth and love, to stretch themselves 
upon the thorny cross of a life of toil and duty ; but 
they make sunshine in many homes, and often win 
the crown of love which would have smoothed the 
most rugged path, brightened the darkest trial, for 
3 * 


58 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


some toiling Martha, whose very strength of endur- 
ance, w T hose resolute assumption of hard duties, often 
shuts her out from the love of men. For men look 
for something soft and clinging upon which to lavish 
their tender care, and are oftener repelled than at- 
tracted by a woman who seems able to stand alone ; 
not looking hack — shallow, superficial reasoners that 
we all are — to the fact that it was some masculine 
shirking of duty which forced a woman into his 
place, who shrinks, they dream not how shudderingly, 
from the post she needs must hold ; and battles, none 
know how wildly, with loathing disgust and soul-sick 
weariness of the life she leads. 

Mrs. Aubrey’s manner to me was charming, and I 
had been with her some time before I remembered 
that I had come on a matter of business, and not to 
make a morning call. We were chatting gaily about 
everything except my errand, when the mantel clock 
struck, and the entrance of a servant with the luncheon- 
tray recalled me to myself. My flush of embarrass- 
ment and hasty apology were smilingly disregarded. 
Mrs. Aubrey would receive no excuse, and declined 
to listen to anything serious until after lunch. 

When the tray was removed, I said, Mr. Percival 
had led me to hope that I might be employed as Miss 
Aubrey’s governess. 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


59 


“ Yes ; Mr. Percival arranged the articles of treaty 
with me before I left Naples, and they only wait yonr 
approval to be complete. I am afraid you will find 
my little girl sadly spoilt and willful — the one ewe 
lamb is rarely managed, you know — but if you will 
only make her like yourself, I shall be more than sat- 
isfied,” she answered, heartily. And then, noticing 
that I looked grave at what sounded like such open 
flattery, she added, ingenuously, 

“ Don’t look so shocked. I did not mean to flatter, 
or even to judge of you by what I have seen this 
morning. I am too much of a diplomat for either. I 
was thinking of what Mr. Percival had said of you, 
when I spoke.” 

I smiled, and answered lightly, “You must not 
take me at Mr. Percival’s estimate, or you will find 
me terribly overrated.” 

“ I am willing to risk it,” she replied, smilingly. 

In a few minutes all the preliminaries were decided. 
I was to come over to Seaforth Court every day, and 
devote five hours to the instruction of Miss Aubrey in 
the English branches, French, music, and embroidery. 
She already spoke Italian like a native. And for 
these manifold duties I was to receive a salary that 
far exceeded my most sanguine hopes. I was to begin 
my new duties the ensuing week, which left me a few 


60 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


days of leisure to rejuvenate my dilapidated raiment. 
Mrs. Aubrey had insisted on paying my first quarter’s 
salary in advance — to make sure of me, she playfully 
said; but I attributed the arrangement to what she 
could not fail to see were my necessities. 

I did not see Miss Aubrey, who was out in the 
grounds with her nurse ; and in truth she was a sight 
that I not a little dreaded. I had felt too keenly how 
much power to be entirely hateful and unbearable can 
be lodged in the small compass of a child’s body, to 
have any wish to encounter a small damsel whom a 
partial mamma was forced to describe as “ very spoilt 
and willful.” She, however, was to be my trouble, 
and the result would be increased comfort for mamma 
and nurse. So I plucked up heart of grace, and, bid- 
ding Mrs. Aubrey adieu , started home with rapid 
steps. But ere I cast anchor in that dear haven, I 
touched at the grocer’s and the butcher’s, and expended 
some of my newly-acquired treasure for such substan- 
tial joys as a fine steak, some potatoes, and butter. 
And at last home again, to relate all my adventures, 
and dilate on the manifold charms of my new acquaint- 


ance. 



CHAPTER XI. 

The next day was Wednesday, my regular evening 
for practising in the church, and quite early I went 
over. I was passionately fond of sacred music, and 
when my regular practising was finished I glided into 
some grand old anthems, and their sonorous cadences 
rose and fell like waves of melody until the dim arches 
rang with the jubilant strain, and the very air quiv- 
ered with harmony. With my peculiar temperament, 
I ought never to have been allowed to touch a musical 
instrument, for my taste amounted to a passion, and 
the indulgence of it was a joy so akin to agony, that 
I have often left the instrument in a state of complete 
nervous prostration, every fibre of my being* strung to 
its utmost tension, and .tears much nearer the surface 
than smiles. This evening the spirit of melody was 
strong within me. I was perfectly attuned ; and it 
was not until sunset stained the western windows with 


62 


SALTED WITH FILE. 


its dying glories that I closed the organ and rose to 
depart. As I reached the vestibule, Dr. Stuart joined 
me. 

“How exquisitely you played this evening, Miss 
Helen. I never heard you do yourself full justice 
before,” he said, as we left the church. 

“ I am glad you were rewarded for your trouble in 
coming to hear me,” I answered. 

“ This is by no means the first time that I have 
drank stolen waters,” he said, smiling. 

“ Indeed ! pray, when were you here before ?” 

“Almost as often as you have been,” he said, 
quietly. 

“ Why, Dr. Stuart, is it possible ? ” I exclaimed in 
surprise. 

“Don’t be vexed, Miss Helen. I did not think 
you would care. You play for me whenever I ask 
you, so it can make no difference,” he said, depreca- 
tingly. 

I smiled at his contrite tone, as I replied : 

“ I don’t think you could do anything that would 
vex me ; but you must have found it dull work after 
the first evening. I should think one essay would 
have satisfied your curiosity.” 

“ I had no curiosity to satisfy,” he said, in a tone 
of annoyance. 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


63 


Not a little surprised at his tone, I asked, quietly : . 

“ What motive induced you to come, then ? ” 

“Love,” he answered, passionately, as he turned 
and caught my hand. “ Tes, Helen,” he continued, 
in reply to my look of blank dismay, “ I love you as 
dearly as a woman was ever loved ; and I cannot be 
happy unless you consent to be my own dear little 
wife. I have long wanted to tell you this, but I 
lacked the courage until now. I know I am a plain, 
unattractive man, but I love you with a depth and 
tenderness that no man can surpass. You are the 
only woman who has ever heard such words upon 
my lips. To you I have given my whole heart, with 
an entire devotion that can know neither change nor 
decay. Such love as mine must kindle a responsive 
feeling sooner or later. Helen, dearest Helen, will 
you not be my own ? ” 

“'Dr. Stuart,” I answered impulsively, “you do me 
too much honor. Believe me, this declaration was 
wholly unexpected. I have never once thought of 
you save as the dear, kind friend to whom my obli- 
gations are countless. I do love you dearly, but 
only as a friend. I never thought of your caring 
particularly for me. It all seems so new and strange ; 
and perhaps, after all, you are mistaken as to the real 
nature of your regard.” 


64 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


He smiled a little at my simplicity, as he replied, 
earnestly : 

“ I am quite certain that I have made no mistake 
as regards myself. I have long known that you are 
the only woman in the world wdio can make life com- 
plete for me. I love yon with all the strength of a 
heart that has hut few ties, and that never loved 
before. And Helen, although the thought of me as a 
lover is a new one to you now, in time you will be 
accustomed to it. Cannot you promise to think of 
what I have told you, and learn to love me, if you 
can ? I will wait months or years, if you will only 
try to love me. Tell me, dearest, is the promise 
more than you can give ? ” 

His voice, tremulous wdth deep feeling, touched 
me strangely. I stood doubting and deciding, while 
his grasp upon my hand grew absolutely painful in 
the intensity of his suspense, and then I said frankly, 

“ I certainly do not love you now, Hr. Stuart, and 
perhaps I will never be able to give you the love you 
ask for ; but I love you dearly as a friend, and may-be 
the deeper feeling may come. I therefore neither 
accept nor reject your suit. Let it be as though you 
had never spoken ; and if you are willing to wait an 
indefinite time, and risk a rejection after all, I will 
promise to think of what you have said, and learn 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


65 


to love yon, if I can. Will this arrangement suit 
you*? ” 

He did not reply directly to me, but the earnest 
kiss he pressed upon my hand, and a low-breathed 
“ Oh Father, I thank Thee,” spoke more eloquently 
of his earnestness than many words could have done. 

But little was said by either of us as we walked 
home through the clear twilight. Dr. Stuart was too 
much in earnest to be master of many words, and I, 
not a little embarrassed by the turn affairs had taken, 
was speculating whether or not I could learn to love 
him. I certainly meant to try. 

Fool that I was, and blind, to think that love could 
be learned as a lesson, or come as the growth of will. 
Affection may be cultivated, fondness may be the 
habit of years, but love! ah, that guest comes un- 
bidden to every human heart, and tarries there at 
will. Ho persuasion can entice him to enter, no force 
can dislodge him. Had I better known the mysteries 
of that wondrous thing, the human heart, my very 
quietude and uncertainty might have taught me that 
he had no power to stir the deep places of my soul. 
Ho chord thrilled beneath his touch ; no pulse quick- 
ened at his approach. I met his glance unshrink- 
ingly? I parted from him with no pain. I loved 
him, but I could never be in love with him, and 


66 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


between the two there is bridgeless, immeasurable 
space. * 

When I told mamma that night what had occurred, 
she evinced so little surprise, that I asked her won- 
deringly if she had suspected it before ? 

“ The only wonder, daughter, is that you, with a 
woman’s intuitive perceptions in such cases, did not 
see it as plainly as I did. I am sure he came often 
enough to make you fancy that the cottage held some 
special charm for him.” 

“But I thought he came to talk to you, mamma; 
I did not dream that he liked me especially.” 

“ Mamma is not so attractive to every one as her 
foolish little girl thinks she is,” she answered fondly. 

“ Mamma, would you like me to marry him ? ” I 
asked shyly, after a brief silence. 

“ Yery much, if you loved him, dearest; for he is 
a truly good man, and would make a wife who loved 
him very happy, as I told him when he asked per- 
mission to address you.” 

“Why, mamma, you knew all the time what an 
Alexander I had become, and did not tell me,” I 
said playfully. 

“ Because, if I had, my shy little bird would have 
taken fright and never allowed her captive to plead 
his cause,” she answered with a smile. 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


67 


’Twas quite late when I kissed her and withdrew ; 
and soon I was sleeping as quietly as if Fate had not 
unclewed one of the cross-threads of my destiny, and 
placed it in my unconscious hand — a thread that was 
to prove the chain-anchor by which I held in the wild 
storms that broke over me ; and though often obscured 
by mists of tears, still to be the guiding-line that led 
me into the still waters of peace. 




CHAPTER XII. 

The day at length arrived upon which I was to 
begin my new duties, and punctually at ten o’clock 
I presented myself at Seaforth Court, and was shown 
into the schoolroom, where Miss Aubrey awaited 
me. 

Miss Aubrey seemed an absurdly formal title, when 
I beheld the witching little sprite who bore it. She 
was as full of pranks and mischief as a kitten, and as 
wild and wayward as the most tricksome elf that ever 
danced fairy rings upon the moonlit sward. She had 
just attained the discreet age of ten, and was, in her 
own opinion, the most mature and dignified of 
females. She was singularly precocious — as children 
become who live much in society — and a very pretty 
creature, with a skin as fine and colorless as a lily-leaf, 
save the vivid carmine in her lips, and large wistful 
eyes that had stolen the purplish splendor of the 
Tuscan violets ; while her soft, brown hair, touched 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


69 


with the gold of Italian sunsets, clustered in silken 
masses around her fair neck and brow. A most at- 
tractive child, although, as her mother frankly owned, 
very wilful and spoilt. I had a battle-royal with her 
on the third day of my reign, in which I taught her 
the hitherto unmastered lesson of submission to “ the 
powers that he.” She was a queer little mixture of 
stubborn pride and tameless courage, but as I was the 
concentration of patience and resolute will, the little 
maid soon found it lost labor to dash herself against 
a rock. My victory was not complete until I had 
gained her love, and that done, the contest between 
us was at an end. Born under a southern sky, she 
yielded herself up to love with all the passionate self- 
abnegation that characterizes the children of the sun- 
kissed climes. In a short while my influence over her 
was unbounded ; my lightest wish was a law as invio- 
late as the code of the Medes and Persians. A grave 
tone and averted glance was the heaviest punishment 
that I need inflict: a smile and kiss a reward suf- 
ficiently ample to repay any exertion. She was such 
a quick, ready scholar, that my duties were never irk- 
some, and my position soon became one of unmixed 
pleasure. 

Mrs. Aubrey lost none of her charms through the 
oft disenchanting medium of daily intercourse, and 


10 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


we soon became warm friends. An intimate I conld 
not have : my nature was too reticent and deep-flow- 
ing to find verbal outlets. I could not bear to talk 
about myself ; but I could listen with sympathy and 
interest to others, and be confided in even while I 
made no confidences in return. Sincere and trust- 
worthy, I had the faculty of lifting the veil that shut 
the world from the heart of my friends, and penetrat- 
ing to their deepest recesses : and yet no hand was 
strong enough to turn the key which locked up my 
inner life. 

Mrs. Aubrey was a woman of warm affections and 
quick, vivacious intellect, but, unfortunately, her 
temperament was so nervous and excitable that the 
least continued strain upon her mental powers reacted 
alarmingly upon her jphysique , producing a state 
of nervous prostration pitiable to behold. Iler hus- 
band’s high diplomatic position necessitated their 
entertaining hosts of guests ; and the constant whirl 
and excitement of political life had so completely 
shattered her, that, at the imperative decree of her 
medical attendants, she had been sent to England to 
rest. All society had been rigidly interdicted until 
such time as her authoritative physicians saw fit to 
declare her out of danger ; and consequently she led 
the life of a recluse, seeing no company and holding no 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


71 


intercourse with the Exham world. She did not even 
employ a local practitioner, hut telegraphed to London 
whenever she desired professional advice. And thus 
Seaforth Court was a little world in itself, for the very 
servants — who were mostly foreigners, by the way 
— held themselves aloof from the villagers, and 
could never be inveigled into a friendly dish of 
gossip. 

. Mrs. Aubrey was a frequent visitor at the cottage, 
and whenever her health would permit, she spent the 
morning with mamma, and thus beguiled many hours 
that otherwise would have hung heavy on the dear 
hands which had .now become so helpless — for mam- 
ma was a confirmed invalid. She had never recovered 
from the effects of her illness, and seldom left her 
couch, except when Mrs. Aubrey would take her for a 
quiet drive along the sands, or Dr. Stuart would carry 
us all over to spend some Saturday at his beautiful 
home. His attentions to me were quietly devoted, 
never obtrusive, but never lacking in a nameless in- 
fluence which made me conscious all the time of his 
unabated love. He was always so genial and pleasant, 
and so devoted to mamma, that I was beginning to 
think with quiet content of one day becoming his 
wife. And thus in dreamy sweetness the days glided 
away until the earth was blushing with June roses, 


Y2 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


and tlie long, low swell of the blue waves upon the 
silvery beach told of summer’s calm advent. 

But not a cloud arose in the clear azure sky to warn 
me that the stormy season of my life had come. 






CHAPTER XIII. 

One evening, near the close of June, I went alone 
to the church to practise. Dr. Stuart usually accom- 
panied. me, hut this afternoon something prevented 
his doing so, and I went alone — a circumstance too 
trivial in itself to merit comment had it not influenced 
my whole future life. I had just received some new 
music, and some of it was so beautiful and difficult 
that I was tempted by the pride of power to remain 
much later than usual, and when I descended from 
the organ-loft the sun was setting. As I reached the 
door the ruby splendor of the sky shone full upon me, 
and I paused in breathless delight to watch its chang- 
ing glories. The rose and purple tints had blended into 
dun, the gold was fading, and the last crimson flush 
was paling out as I turned away with a sigh. It was 
re-echoed near me so profoundly that I turned hastily, 
and met the dark, earnest gaze of a pair of singularly 

brilliant eyes. A tall, stately figure, a long, flowing 
4 * 


74 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


beard, and a generally foreign air, were all that I could 
distinguish ; for the person was standing in the shadow 
of one of the massive columns that supported the 
organ-loft. I flushed in spite of myself, at the steady 
scrutiny to which I was subjected, and, as a hint to the 
inquisitive stranger that he might leave, I closed one 
leaf of the heavy folding-doors. He accepted the 
suggestion, and, walking past me, lifted his hat, bowed 
deeply, and disappeared. 

I hastily locked the door and hurried home, 
wondering not a little who the distinguished-looking 
stranger could be. Mamma was so apprehensive about 
my being out alone that I did not mention this inci- 
dent to her, fearing to increase her uneasiness, but I 
privately determined the next time I went alone to 
lock the church doors, and prevent the possibility of 
another such adventure. 

When I reached Seaforth Court the next morning, 
a servant requested me to walk into the library, where 
his mistress was waiting for me. Mrs. Aubrey rose 
as I entered, and, after greeting me warmly, said : 

“ Allow me the pleasure of presenting my brother, 
Colonel DeVere, to my friend, Miss Helen Tres- 
sylian.” 

A gentleman advanced as she spoke, and I looked 
up to meet the same brilliant gaze that I had encoun- 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


75 


tered the evening before in the church. He smiled 
at mj flush and start of surprise, and said pleasantly, 

“ We are not absolute strangers, Miss Tressylian. 
I had the pleasure of seeing you once before.” 

“ Why, Colonel, where ?” asked his sister in sur- 
prise. 

“ In the church, last evening,” he replied. 

“ And why did you not tell me of it ?” she asked. 

“ Because the occurrence was not sufficiently mar- 
vellous to warrant a history,” he answered lightly. 

Mrs. Aubrey turned to me and said : 

“ My brother arrived very unexpectedly yesterday, 
Helen, and to-day Lillian petitions for a holiday ; will 
you give it ?” 

“ Certainly, if you wish it,” I said. 

“ But she will only have it on condition that you 
will stay all day, otherwise I doubt if even c Uncle 
Edward’ would reconcile her to your absence.” And 
turning to her brother, she continued, a You don’t 
know what a witch this young lady . is, Colonel ; she 
has enchanted the whole establishment, from myself 
to the gardener’s boy.” 

“I have no doubt of it; I thought her a stray 
seraph yesterday, and watched to see her melt away 
with the sunset,” he said playfully. 

Just then Lillian rushed into the room like a small 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


Y6 

whirlwind, and her mingled caresses and entreaties 
effectually precluded conversation until I had prom- 
ised to remain as long as usual. 

As soon as that point was settled, the little maid 
curled up on a cushion at my feet, and listened con- 
tentedly and comprehendingly to the gay and varied 
conversation which soon sprang up between us “grave 
and reverend seigniors.” 

Colonel Edward De Yere was a man not unknown to 
fame. As an officer in the Indian campaigns, he had 
covered himself with glory, and had been honorably 
mentioned by the Home Department, “ for extreme 
gallantry and meritorious service.” He was covered 
with medals and orders, both foreign and English, 
for his military services had not been confined to his 
native land. France and Austria had both presented 
him with swords and regiments, and his life had been 
one of restless activity and daring. 

In him I met the soldier, the scholar, and the 
gentleman. He was in the full prime of his life, 
and singularly attractive, not only from his extreme 
physical beauty, but from a strength and intensity 
of nature, a freshness and vigor of heart and mind. 
Although the suns of thirty-eight years had bronzed 
his cheek, he moved with all the elasticity and spring 
of extreme youth, and bore his honors as lightly as 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


77 

his years. His manners were elegant, so exquisitely 
refined and courteous, fragrant with the aroma of 
high birth and breeding, and gilded with the winning 
grace which springs only from a noble and chivalric 
heart. He was tall and well-formed, with a profusion 
of rich, dark hair covering his shapely head. His 
brilliant hazel eyes looked out from beneath straight 
black brows, whose raven hue contrasted strongly 
with the broad, fair forehead above them. A rich 
brunette complexion, bronzed by sun and wind, and 
yet retaining enough of its pristine delicacy to show 
the dusky blood that surged into it, whenever he was 
swayed by passion or excitement ; splendid white 
teeth, that gleamed through his thick, curling, black 
moustache, and a long, silken black beard, gave him 
a markedly foreign and distinguished appearance. He 
was a strikingly elegant-looking man, and showed 
the genuine thoroughbred, from the imperial carriage 
of his stately head, down to his small, shapely feet. 
His voice, slightly tinged with a foreign accent, was 
wonderfully soft and rich, with a sort of harp-like 
depth and swell, that made his lower tones indescrib- 
ably melodious. There was a depth of passion and 
tenderness in the man that, if stirred, made his lightest 
word a caress. Surely you have heard such voices, 
whose tones linger with vibrant melody upon the ear, 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


78 

and reach into the heart, nntil its sweetest chords 
quiver with ecstasy, long after the words that set them 
thrilling have died into the blank, voiceless silence 
which is the grave of sound. 

There are some men whom, once known, it is im- 
possible to forget: whose intense individuality im- 
presses itself indelibly upon all who come in contact 
with them ; and who will be idolafrously loved or 
bitterly hated, according to the sympathy or repulsion 
existing between themselves and the natures they 
encounter, but who never inspire a mere negative 
sentiment, and seem to defy you to forget them; 
having about them some strong subtile emanation of 
power, the intensity of will, and perhaps some dor- 
mant mesmeric influence, which weaker souls intui- 
tively recognize as their master, and yield to with 
love or loathing, as the case may be, but never with 
indifference. Such a man was Colonel De Yere. As 
if by instinct I fathomed his nature, and when we 
parted that evening, I felt as if I had known him 
for years. And yet our conversation had been as 
surface-like as possible, touching once or twice upon 
the outskirts of some grave topic, and then glancing, 
swallow-like, from shade into sunshine, from flower to 
flower. 

After a late luncheon I rose to depart. Colonel 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


79 

De Yere accompanied me to the edge of the grounds, 
and when I paused to say good-bye, he said, 

“I have a favor to ask of you, Miss Tressylian, 
which is, that you will he so kind as not to mention 
my arrival to any one. I have not revisited this place 
since I left it as a boy, many years ago ; and as my 
stay will be very uncertain, I particularly wish to re- 
main undisturbed by the good people of the village, 
whose interest in me is doubtless extinguished by my 
long exile. Can I depend upon your kindness to 
keep my secret ? ” 

“ Certainly, sir, to the strictest letter of the law. I 
hold no intercourse with the Exhamites, and so will 
not be tempted to betray you,” I responded. 

“ Thank you. I shall depend upon your silence,” 
he said, as he took leave of me. 

It was a promise simply asked and thoughtlessly 
given, and of the hitter fruit it was to bear, how could 
we dream ? Had it been a crime deliberately planned 
and wilfully committed, its punishment could not 
have been more terrible. 

I found Dr. Stuart playing chess with mamma, and, 
being absorbed in that most unsociable game, neither 
asked me any questions respecting my day’s adven- 
tures, and 1 finally retired, without telling her of 
Colonel De Yere’s arrival. 


80 


SALTED WITH FIDE. 


There lay my great error. I had taken the first 
step in the hidden path that was destined to lead me 
to such a heritage of woe. And yet, my silence was 

hut the result of an oyer-strained sense of honor. I 

* 

had promised to tell no one, and my morbid truthful- 
ness did not allow me even to except mamma. There 
could be no tampering with a plighted word by a 
daughter of the “ Trusty Tressylians.” 




CHAPTER XIY. 

It is impossible for me to describe bow much my 
life brightened with the coming of Colonel De Yere. 
I saw him daily ; for, under the pretext of his being 
lonely, and herself but an indifferent companion, Mrs. 
Aubrey threw us constantly together, and I found 
him a very agreeable break in the monotony of my 
life, while his ever-recurring allusions to the speedy 
departure that he must take, took away all doubt 
about the propriety of keeping mamma in ignorance 
of his arrival. Why interest her in a guest who 
would tarry but a day ? 

He was a man of fine natural abilities and exten- 
sive cultivation, and, having been a great traveller, his 
fund of incident and adventure was unlimited. To 
me, whose whole life had been spent in two retired 
places, his conversation was strangely fascinating. He 
could tell me so much that books could not, and in a 
4 * 


82 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


few graphic sentences make a place a vivid reality, 
which before had been merely a geographical abstract. 
And he was fresh from and familiar with the great 
living world of men, whose life meant action, inci- 
dent, and conflict with shifting scenes and countless 
actors; not a pukeless vegetation, a dull drifting on 
stagnant waters. And I pined for an active, eventful 
life; I chafed silently, but ceaselessly, at my dull, 
narrow circuit, whose only change was from one stage 
of pain or privation to another. And then Colonel 
De Yere’s views were all so broad and large-minded; 
there were no narrow places, no bias cuts in his soul ; 
all was liberal, frank, and generous — almost too lib- 
eral on some points, but that was attributable, not so 
much to a tendency in himself towards free-thinking, 
as to the cosmopolite life he had led ; and the constant 
attrition with his fellow-men had necessarily rubbed 
down all points and squared all circles of national pre- 
judice. And yet, beneath his gay debonnaire man- 
ner there was an undercurrent of sadness, almost 
cynicism, which seemed to show itself against his 
will, and impressed me with the belief that there had 
been hard lines and sharp angles in his life. This 
always latent trait developed into open sneers when- 
ever human nature was the topic of discourse. Once I 
had nearly asked him what experience of his fellow- 


SALTED WITH FIRE . 


83 


men had given him the right to hold them in such 
hitter contempt ; hut I thought, if a wound was fes- 
tering beneath his brilliant armor, the most merciful 
course was to leave it untouched. I could not heal it, 
and my unskillful pressure might only make it bleed 
afresh. 

His religious views were very peculiar, more closely 
resembling the old Egyptian theory of metempsycho- 
sis than any system of modern theology that I have 
encountered, either among men or hooks. The doc- 
trine of eternal punishment, or what he called the 
monstrous doubt that a God of justice and mercy 
would lay an infinite punishment upon finite beings, 
he indignantly rejected on what, I must admit, were 
plausible and fair-seeming grounds, though, of course, 
if measured exactly by Biblical rule and square, they 
would prove untenable. Once, when we were discuss- 
ing some point of religious belief upon which we dif- 
fered widely, but which was one of the anchors of my 
faith (it was the doctrine of the foreknowledge of God 
in connection with human free agency), his line of 
argument was so powerful and sophistical that I ex- 
claimed, impetuously, “ Oh, hush ! the belief comforts 
me ; I will not give it up.” 

“ Pretty enthusiast ! ” he said, smiling rather sadly, 
“ if it is ignorance, why cling to it ? ” 


84 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


“ If ignorance is bliss, or even a greater measure of 
comfort, is it wisdom to be wise ? ” I asked. 

“ Child,” he answered, and as he spoke a profound 
gravity shadowed both face and voice, “ dream on 
while still you may, and believe anything, no mat- 
ter how bigoted or inconsistent, if it only requires the 
exercise of faith, rather than become what I am, a 
waif on the sea of speculation, drifting aimlessly about 
with neither rudder nor compass, ever seeking, ever 
doubting, and unable to say truthfully that I believe 
one single tenet of the Christian faith.” 

He left the room as soon as he finished speaking, 
and the subject was never renewed between us. But 
that revelation had let the light into many of the dark 
places of his mind which before had baffled me. And 
oh ! what a weary waste it made all life to him ; for 
no matter how careless and irreligious a human soul 
may be, there comes to it at some time the conscious- 
ness of its own immortality and the need of a Divine 
arm to rest upon. And when this necessity is press- 
ing upon heart and soul, when everything has given 
way beneath us, and the whole earth is reeling and 
unsteady, if the soul is struggling blindly in the dark 
waters of unbelief, what refuge can it find secure 
enough tq shelter it from the storm of its own de- 
spair ? 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


85 


From that day Colonel De Vere’s name mingled in 
my every prayer. I pitied him so deeply; for each 
day, as my intimacy with him increased, I saw that, 
strive to hide it as he might, he was a most unhappy 
man. Unlike the melodramatic type of men, he did 
not pin a label upon his breast and stalk through life 
with a gloomy brow and tragic mien, saying in word 
and manner, “ Behold a smitten man ! ” But he drew 
over his wound the mantle of proud reserve, and strove 
by a gay, insouciant manner to conceal the fox that 
gnawed upon his vitals. 




CHAPTER XV. 

Colonel DeYere’s manner towards me had always 
been particularly pleasant. How a change indescriba- 
ble, but unutterably satisfying, came over it. He 
seemed to fill a blank in my life of whose existence I 
had been unaware until the exquisite contentment 
which became mine proved that it had ceased to exist. 
I never thought why I was so happy, or how his com- 
ing had made me so. I simply accepted the fact, con- 
tent to revel in the sunshine without seeking to pene- 
trate to the source of its light. 

Mamma watched me fondly, delighting in the buoy- 
ant step and gay laugh that brightened our home. At 
first, I found the restraint of being unable to speak to 
her of Colonel De Vere both wearing and painful ; I 
was constantly on the eve of mentioning him ; but, 
after a while, it would have been a far greater effort 
to speak of him than it was to keep silent. I did not 
realize why it should be so; for he was ever in my 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


87 


thoughts, mingling with every dream, coloring every 
fancy. 

Often, in the silent watches of the night, have I 
shivered with a strange delight at some remembered 
glance or tone; and, for the first time in my life, I 
gloried in my personal loveliness, because I was fair 
in his eyes. Of course, like a man of the world, he 
had paid me countless compliments; but I had at- 
tached no value to them, merely ascribing them to his 
continental gallantry. But one day, to justify her 
own extravagant admiration of me, Lillian quoted her 
uncle’s declaration that I was the most exquisitely 
beautiful woman he had ever seen. I rebuked my 
little worshipper for repeating a speech not meant 
to reach my ear, but all the while a king’s ransom 
could not have purchased a single charm that won his 
admiring glance. 

And yet, it was not mere personal vanity. I had 
often been told by mamma and Dr. Stuart that I was 
beautiful, but, beyond the momentary pleasure of hear- 
ing it, I had never given the matter another thought. 
But now each clustering ringlet, each roseate tint, 
each snowy curve and winsome dimple, held a value 
not of themselves, but of the eyes that held them fair. 
Ah, youth and love! how strange, how sweet they 
are ! And the rose-crowned, nectar-filled chalice was 


88 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


so soon to be dashed from my eager lips, ’twas well 
that I should quaff its full intoxicating sweetness. 

One day I had been late in leaving home, and there- 
fore did not leave Seaforth Court until the sun was 
setting. It was one of those rare, delicious days in 
September, when mere existence is a joy. The deep 
sapphire sky was flecked with fleeces of snowy clouds, 
whose lower edges the setting sun had deeply tinged 
with gold. In the west, shining through bars of rose 
and purple splendor, lay a sea of molten gold ; and, 
lower down, staining the distant hills with its blush, 
was a belt of crimson clouds, melting on the horizon- 
line into a clear greenish light, which served but to 
intensify its ruby tints. The heaving sea was flushed 
with the reflected glory, and far away, sounding softly 
over the incarnadined waters, came ever and anon the 
faint music of a bugle boat-horn. 

I paused upon the colonnade, and gazed in voiceless 
ecstasy upon the glowing sky. 

Colonel De Yere was standing beside me, and soon 
his melodious voice broke the impassioned stillness as 
he repeated, with exquisite taste and expression, those 
beautiful lines from Tennyson’s Princess : 

“ The splendor falls on castle walls. 

And snowy summits old in story ; 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


89 


The long lights shake across the lake, 

And the wild cataracts leap in glory . 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying ; 
And echo answers echo, dying, dying, dying. 

“ Oh hark, oh hear, how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going, 

O’er cliff and scaur are heard afar 

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing : 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying ; 
And echo answers echo, dying, dying, dying. 

“ Ah, love, they die in yon rich sky, 

Or faint o’er field and flood and river ; 

Our echoes roll from pole to pole. 

And live forever and forever.” 


The deep liquid flow of his voice ceased suddenly, 
and I looked up. His brilliant eyes were bent upon 
me with the most passionate tenderness in their glow- 
ing depths, and his face, flushed and eager, wore an 
expression that no woman could fail to understand. I 
felt the crimson surge into my cheeks, and turned my 
face away, as he caught my ungloved hand in both of 
his, and held it for one moment in an ardent clasp. 
The next instant he suddenly released it, and stepped 
back with a sigh so bitter, that, despite my embarrass- 
ment, I glanced towards him, and was startled at the 
change that these few seconds had wrought in his ap- 
pearance. Every tinge of color had faded out of his 
face, leaving it rigid and ashen ; and his eyes, late so 


90 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


glowing, were full of the deepest gloom. This change 
was inexplicable to me, and became more so when he 
turned abruptly and left me without even saying 
good-night. 

For the next three days I scarcely saw him, and 
when we did meet his manner was cold and con- 
strained. This alteration in him made me bitterly 
unhappy, though I was far too proud to show it, 
maintaining all the while an air of cheerful serenity 
and light-heartedness which was quite the reverse of 
what I felt. But so intense was my pride, that I 
would have died sooner than betray an atom of the 
depression that held me in its relentless clutch. 

On the fourth day, as I sat in the library preparing 
a model for Lillian’s drawing lesson, Colonel De Yere 
came in and began to pace the floor. He was saying 
nothing, and his presence made me so nervous that I 
made several false lines in my drawing. Just as I 
perpetrated the crowning enormity he paused beside 
me, and, looking over my shoulder, said drily, 

“ That drawing will not be suitable for a model, 
Miss Helen. ; the perspective is wrong.” 

I tried to rectify the defect, but as he stood watch- 
ing me, I succeeded so ill that I laid my pencil down, 
and said, lightly, 

“ I can accomplish nothing better, Colonel De Yere, 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


91 


as long as yon stand beside me watching for failure. 
That air of critical severity would discompose Michael 
Angelo himself. What have I done that your sachem- 
ship should dig up the hatchet and set out on the war- 
path with an appetite whetted for scalps ? ” 

“You have done nothing: the fault lies with me,” 
he answered, brusquely. 

“ Then let us bury the hatchet and forget all about 
it,” I said, simply, as I held out my hand to him. 

A deep flush mounted to his very brow, as he 
pushed my hand almost rudely away, and said pas- 
sionately — “Child, child, you tempt me.” 

A pause, awkward and painful, ensued, and then he 
seated himself beside me, saying quietly, 

“ Give me your pencil, Miss Helen, and as I am to 
blame for the faults in your work, let me see if I 
cannot correct them.” 

I held the crayon towards him in silence, and he 
took both it and my hand, saying gently, 

“ Forgive, and, if you can, forget all that has lately 
passed; and believe, despite my wayward temper, 
that my regard for you will know no change.” 

There was a grave tenderness and sincerity in his 
voice and manner that carried conviction with it, 
and completely banished my late pain and doubts. 
So supreme was my faith in him, that his lightest 


92 


SALTED WITH FIRE . 


word would have stilled the wildest tempest of doubt 
that could have arisen in my heart; his simple as- 
sertion or denial would have outweighed any one 
else’s oath. My trust in him was supreme, boundless, 
entire. “Perfect love casteth out fear, for fear hath 
torments.” 




CHAPTER XVI. 

The days swept by unmarked by any incident, 
with no ripple on the surface to show how much the 
current was deepening in this calm. 

During this time, from the first of July, Dr. Stuart 
was in Scotland, where he always spent four months 
of the year, visiting his estate and his relatives, 
for he had the true Scottish love of kith and kin. 
Leal and True was the motto that should have been 
inscribed on the shield of that knightliest of gen- 
tlemen. He wrote frequently to mamma, for whom 
his affection appeared to be tender and sincere. But 
who could fail to love my beautiful, gentle mother ? 
or to admire the dignity and fortitude with which she 
bore her changed estate ? 

Our domestic affairs were on a far more comfortable 
scale than they had been. My salary was very liberal, 
and every day a basket of fruit, vegetables, and flowers, 
was sent over from Seaforth Court. The flowers were 


94 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


always arranged by Colonel De Yere, whose taste as 
a florist was perfect, and mamma often praised the 
gardeners skill so highly as to make me feel downright 
disingenuous. It is a strange thing to me, how, loving 
mamma as dearly as I did, I could possibly keep her 
in ignorance of a person who interested me as deeply 
as Colonel De Yere; for I was naturally of a frank, 
open disposition, and never had a secret from her in 
my life, until this one. But if a person has ever with- 
held a confidence that another had a right to expect, 
the longer it is delayed the harder is the task of 
making it at all, and such was the case with me. I 
had delayed the communication from day to day, out 
of a false sense of honor ; and finally it became so 
involved with my private feelings, that I found it im- 
possible to be made. 

The style of life at Seaforth Court underwent no 
alteration, and I often wondered if Colonel De Yere 
did not find its monotony insufferable, accustomed as 
he was to so much change and variety. One day I 
asked him if, wearied with its sameness, he was not 
pining to take flight. He smiled rather sadly as he 
replied, 

“ If you had knocked about the world as much as I 
have done, Miss Helen, you would not find this sweet 
home-life monotonous. It is such a rest, so delicious 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


95 


an interlude in my nomadic career, that I dread to 
think that, like all human joys, I must ere long resign 
it, and renew my Ishmael wanderings in places whose 
charm familiarity long ago extinguished, or fight 
battles in which I have no interest, and in which 1 
have nothing to win or lose. Should these days be in 
store for me — and my dread of them is deep enough 
to he prophetic — I will look hack upon this time as 
a traveller in the African desert recalls the oasis he 
has left, when nothing spreads out before him but a 
dreary, blinding waste of sand.” 

In the deep melancholy of his tone I recognized 
anew the undercurrent of sadness that I had detected 
before, and I felt that I had unwittingly touched 
upon his unknown grief. 

It had become a habit with us, during Lillian’s hour 
of recess, that one of us should read aloud for the bene- 
fit of the others, and the task usually devolved upon 
Colonel De Vere, and at this time we were reading Jane 
Eyre. It was a half-holiday, decided upon after my 
arrival. Lillian was out walking with her nurse, and 
we had just settled comfortably to our embroidery 
and reading, when some dispatches arrived by express 
for Mrs. Aubrey, which required an immediate reply. 
She went at once to her chamber, and left Colonel De 
Vere and myself alone. He had been reading some 


96 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


time, and had reached that part of the story where 
Mr. Rochester is explaining his conduct in attempting 
to marry Jane while his wife was still living. Then 
he closed the hook, and said, in a strangely eager tone, 

“ Miss Helen, was Rochester very much in the 
wrong \ ” 

“ Of course he was — selfish, dishonorable, and 
criminal,” I said, decidedly. 

His face flushed as he said quickly, “ You are a se- 
vere judge. There were palliating circumstances 
that you do not take into consideration.” 

“ Palliating to some extent, I grant, but not justify- 
ing. He was not to blame for the mere loving her, 
but he was selfish and dishonorable in trying to be- 
tray her into a marriage which he knew was a mock- 
ery, and for that part of his conduct I see no excuse,” 
I answered quietly. 

Colonel De Yere sprang to his feet and began to 
pace the floor with rapid steps, speaking impetuously, 
even passionately. 

“ You are hard and unmerciful in your judgment. 
In all the strength of untempted virtue, you make no 
allowance for his love and human weakness ; you for- 
get how miserably he was fettered ; he was not inex- 
cusable ; any man, every man, would have acted just 
as he did.” 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


97 


“ Then Heaven grant, if all men are like Rochester, 

all women may he as brave as Jane Eyre,” I said, very 

gravely, answering as much his manner as his words. 

He came and stood before me, saying hurriedly, 

“ Helen, would you condemn as unsparingly in real 

life as you do the fictitious sin? Would love and 

wretchedness find no pity in your eyes, if they yielded 

to the pressure of fierce temptation ? ” 

There was something in the agitation of his voice 

and manner that touched me with a thrill of strange 

© 

agony, and I said, rising as I spoke, 

“ I do not care to make such a discussion personal, 
Colonel De Yere. We will change the subject, if you 
please.” 

I seated myself at the piano and dashed into an 
intricate German waltz, and when I finished it and 
turned from the instrument, Colonel De Yere had left 
the room, and I did not see him again that day. 

This incident, although I could attach no reasonable 
or probable meaning to it, haunted me for days, 
always coupled as at first with that strange thrill 
of nameless agony. Is it true that the weird sister- 
hood shadow forth upon our hearts the spectrum of 
some approaching woe ? The theory is supported by 
many strange evidences, too numerous to be mere co- 
incidences. But why, oh, why, darken our present 
5 


98 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


joy with the shadow of a future grief which we are 
powerless to avert ? Why not let us dream out our 
brief hour of sunshine, w T ith no consciousness of the 
cloud that is gathering to drench us in tears and 
gloom % 

Poor, blinded humanity! We are but Jonahs 
after all. Our gourd, though often only a gourd that 
came up in a night and perished in a night, was ours, 
and we loved it — ah ! sometimes so tenderly loved it. 
And when God prepares a worm and smites it, we 
think “we do well to be angry,” though the anger oft 
costs us another withered vine. But in the' time of 
which I write, my heart was too gay and joyous to be 
long depressed by intangible griefs, and I soon recov- 
ered my light-heartedness, and the days passed by in 
unsullied brightness, in cloudless happiness, which I 
might have known had too little of earth’s taint of 
sorrow and unsatisfyingness to last ; for my heart felt, 
if my lips never framed the words, that “ this world 
was good enough for me.” 

Over this period of my life I well might linger. It 
was so bright, so beautiful, and, alas ! so soon to be 
buried out of sight beyond even memory’s right to 
“ go to the grave and weep there.” If it were worth 
while, I could repaint each scene as it occurred, recall 
the gay words and jests, the ringing songs and laugh- 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


99 


ter, those little nothings that yet were all, and made 
the days so full of sweetness and sunshine. And the 
gracious woman and fair child, whose love was much 
to me then, and who were so soon to be lost forever 
in the maelstrom of agony which was even then gath- 
ered to engulf me, both come back at memory’s 
weird command with words of love and tenderness, 
and bridge the chasm that yawns between these days 
and those ; and I am again a glad, happy girl, wearing 
in my heart of hearts the kingly image that for years 
has stood in memory’s halls with its face veiled and 
turned towards the wall, while my dying love wailed 
in its desolate agony and struggled wildly in the dark- 
ened chambers of my soul. 

“ Oh, He who sits above 
In His calm glory, will forgive the love 
His creatures bear each other ; even if blent 
With a vain worship ; for its close is dim 
Ever with grief which leads 
The wrung soul back to Him.” 




CHAPTER XYIL 

October, queen of changing tints and royal colors, 
had arrived, and wood and wold were gorgeous with 
her rich livery. Bronze and gold, crimson and russet, 
reigned in the foliage, while golden gorse and purple 
heather gleamed on the distant hills and shadowy 
valleys. ^ The brilliant court had just opened; not a 
single splendid tint had paled, when all glory died 
suddenly out of life for me. 

Late one evening a groom from Seaforth Court 
brought me a note from Mrs. Aubrey, in which she 
said, telegraphic dispatches from Naples necessitated 
her leaving the next night, and I must come over as 
soon as possible in the morning, and stay with her all 
day. 

Immediately after breakfast I walked over. Lillian 
met me at the hall-door in a passion of tears, weeping 
so bitterly that even I could scarce console her. Poor 
little maid ! hers was not the only heart aching that 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


101 


day. It was trying to ns all, and wonld have been 
unbearably so had we not been too much occupied to 
think much of our approaching separation. 

Colonel De Yere, who was to accompany his sister, 
was constantly with us, but he was gloomy and ab- 
stracted, and made no effort to conceal it. 

At last everything was packed, and it was nearly 
sunset. I had just parted with Lillian, whose grief 
was so extreme that I had to leave her mother to con- 
sole her ; my presence only increased her woe ; so I 
went down-stairs to wait until Mrs. Aubrey could 
rejoin me. 

The library was empty when I entered it, and, over- 
come by the fatigue and excitement of the day, I sat 
down beside a table and gave way to tears. The next 
moment Colonel De Yere was kneeling beside me, 
and, drawing my head upon his breast, he said, in the 
softest tones of his exquisite voice, “ Hush, hush, my 
darling ; you must not weep, my own little blossom ; 
I love you.” 

Where, oh, W'here will I find colors rich enough to 
paint the rapture of that hour ! It was joy sufficient 
for one life, enough to blot out all the past, to glorify 
all the future, have what it might in store. And as I 
rested upon his bosom, and felt his strong heart beat- 
ing fast beneath my cheek, the almost uttered prayer, 


102 


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“ How let Thy servant depart in peace,” rose to my 
lips. The fullness, the perfection, of joy was in my 
heart ; such joy as comes but once in a lifetime, and 
makes earth a heaven while it lasts. 

After the first kiss he pressed upon my lips hut 
little was said. H o words were needed to tell us how 
completely we belonged to each other ; heart answered 
heart in one deep, raptured swell. 

Mrs. Aubrey’s voice in the hall soon recalled us 
from the Elysian fields where we were straying, and 
Colonel De Yere rose from beside me. As his sister 
entered I also rose, and prepared to say good-bye. 
My adieux were finally over, and as I started to go, 
somewhat appalled at the lateness of the hour, Colonel 
De Yere said, easily, 

“ It is so late, Miss Helen, that I cannot consent 
for you to go alone. I must really see you home.” 

Mrs. Aubrey smiled mischievously as she whis- 
pered, “ Oh, cara mia , I shall be so glad ! ” and then, 
with a last kiss, she let me go. 

It was quite dark when we reached the green before 
the cottage gate. Colonel De Yere declined, my shy 
invitation to come in, and we parted under the shadow 
of a giant' oak. When at last I turned to leave him, 
he caught both of my hands, and said, pleadingly, 

“ Helen, darling, you have never told me that you 


SALTED WITH FIDE. 


103 


love me. Will you not say just once, before we part, 
‘ Edward, I love you dearly ? ’ ” 

The task was a bard one, but after much pleading, 
eager and passionate, he had his wish. And then, 
clasped in his strong arms, so close that I felt each 
wild throb of his heart, he showered kisses upon my 
upturned face, and whispered words of sweetest love 
and tenderness. 

At length I broke from him, with glowing cheeks 
and thrilling pulses, and walked rapidly across the 
green to our gate. As I looked back I saw him stand- 
ing like a dark shadow under the tree, watching to 
see me disappear. Mamma was sitting in the twilight, 
and I knelt beside her and told her of Mrs. Aubrey’s 
plans, and regrets that she could not find time to come 
over and say good-bye. When I finished speaking, a 
familiar voice said, playfully, “ Has the departure of 
new friends stolen the welcome of older ones, Miss 
Helen?” and Dr. Stuart stepped forward and held 
out his hand. I returned his greeting warmly, and 
jestingly parried his question. I was too happy to 
be other than joyous, and my mirth seemed contagious. 
Mamma and Dr. Stuart grew positively merry. Once 
mamma said, “ Why, daughter, you are in such a gale. 
I thought parting with Mrs. Aubrey would depress 
you.” 


104 : 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


I flushed consciously as I said, 

“ Oh, mamma, you know I was born on May-day, 
when all the elves and fairy -folk have power ; how 
can you expect me to behave like rational people, 
when such a moon is shining in the sky, and setting 
all my elfin blood to dancing ? ” 

I had half determined to tell Dr. Stuart that his 
suit was hopeless, but he was so gay and blithe that 
I had no heart to dash his hopes. My own love 
taught me to be pitiful for his. 

Two days after Mrs. Aubrey’s departure, I received 
a letter from her, enclosing a little tear-stained note 
from Lillian, and telling me all about her journey 
and future plans. In a postscript she asked archly, 
“Helen, what have you done to the Colonel? He 
has left his mind, manners, and estate behind him, 
and is as dull and distrait as possible. I have a 
dreadful suspicion sometimes that you have some 
agency in the matter. I shall not easily forgive you, 
if your dimpled fingers have shattered the bright 
Chateau d’ Espagne that I had built for your joint 
occupancy, and thus deprived me of the coveted right 
to sign myself, if you will pardon the open imperti- 
nence, 

“ Votre lelle soeur , 

“ Lillian De Vere Aubrey.” 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


105 


I was to reply to the letters when her banker 
should forward her address ; and though^ in due 
time I received it, the letter remains unanswered to 
this day, and never, until we meet beyond the River, 
will our interrupted friendship be renewed. 

“ Though summers come, as summers will, 

Oh, friend of mine, when friends were few, 

I loved you better than I knew — 

The place you left is vacant still.” 

And as long as my heart shall beat with one con- 
scious pulse, will her memory be one of the most 
fragrant that I treasure — a friend so true and tender 
in the dark days of my life. We will meet again in 
days that have no night to follow, and then, if my 

silence grieved you, all will be explained. 

5 * 




CHAPTER XVIII. 

A week later, early one afternoon, I walked over in 
the golden October sunshine to Seaforth Court. The 
hall-door was open, and I passed through into the library, 
and stood dreaming over the last moments I had spent 
in it, until they seemed to exist once more. So vivid 
was this impression, that I heard a familiar step, and 
looked up with scarce a shade of surprise to see Col- * 
onel De Vere, but so changed and haggard, that it 
seemed as if years, instead of days, had rolled over 
his head. Before I could utter a word he said, impet- 
uously, 

“ Helen, I could bear it no longer ; every mile I 
put between us only increased my wretchedness and 
guilt. I am a wretch, beyond the reach of pardon. 

You will hate and despise me, and I deserve that 
you should, but I must tell you all. And oh 1 Helen, 
pity while you hate me, for I am a married man ! ” 

I listened in blank uncomprehending dismay to his 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


107 


broken words ; but when he nttered the last sentence, 
the room seemed to whirl round and round before 
me, and with one bitter cry, “ Oh, the sin and shame ! ’’ 

I sunk lifeless at his feet. 

****** 

When I returned to consciousness, Colonel De Yere 
was kneeling by me, chafing my hands, and calling 
me by every tender word and name. With my re- 
turning strength came a rush of memory that made 
me withdraw from his encircling arms, and put his 
hand aside. He rose to his feet, and with bent head 
and downcast eyes, said entreatingly, 

“ I know you hate and despise me ; but, oh, Helen ! 
in mercy listen to my justification.” 

“Justification! there can be none,” I exclaimed, 
bitterly. 

“ To the palliation of my guilt, then,” he said so 
humbly that I melted into tears. It was so hard to 
see my idol humbled before me. 

At the sight of my rain of tears he clenched his 
hands, saying brokenly, 

“ Oh ! my darling, do not weep. I am not worthy * 
of these tears. Hate me, if you will ; despise me, I 
know you must ; but, oh ! my darling, do not grieve 
over me.” 

His voice, full of the most exquisite tenderness, 


108 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


thrilled every chord of my soul, and, mastering my 
emotion, I said, as steadily as I could speak, 

“ I have no wish to reproach you. I will listen to 
anything you wish to tell me. But you must remem- 
ber henceforth that there must he no professions of 
regard made to me. Honor forbids it now.” 

My involuntary sigh was echoed deeply as he seated 
himself on an ottoman at my feet, and thus began : 

“ To make my explanation lucid, I must revert to 
the earliest years of my life, and show you all the 
influences that led me to the commission of an act, 
whose consequences have blighted all my life. 

“My father was the sternest man I ever knew, and 
my childhood was yery unhappy. My mother, God 
bless her ! died at Lillian’s birth, when I was just ten 
years of age, and the three succeeding years I spent 
at home were dreary beyond expression. 

“ My father had conceived a strong dislike for me ; 
why, I know not, unless, as is sometimes the case, he 
was jealous of me as the future successor to the hon- 
ors and riches that gave his life its whole flavor and 
relish. He was a vain, arrogant man, ruling his sub- 
ordinates with autocratic sway, and exacting the most 
servile compliance with his every whim. My temper 
was too like his own in haughty pride to yield him 
the complete submission he demanded, and this added 




SALTED WITH FIRE. 109 

additional strength to his dislike. He treated me with 
nnrelaxing severity, until, worn out at length with 
his unkindness, I asked to he sent to a public school. 
My request was granted, though as ungraciously as 
possible ; for instead of sending me to Eton or Rugby, 
as I had desired, I was dispatched to a German uni- 
versity, where I was to remain until I graduated ; and, 
with a degree of petty malice worthy of a lower 
source, he made me an allowance so small as barely to 
cover my actual expenses, without leaving the small- 
est surplus for boyish indulgences. 

“ I was haughtily proud and keenly sensitive ; and 
as I could never return such civilities, I would never 
accept the least hospitality from*my fellow-students, 
or accompany them to any place of public resort, con- 
fining myself to my own quarters, and prosecuting my 
studies vigorously. I was a ready student, and at 
eighteen I graduated with the first honors. 

“ My father, on being notified of the fact, wrote 
briefly to inform me that I was at liberty to choose 
my residence' for the next three years in any of the 
continental cities that I preferred, and, when informed 
of my selection, he would place a deposit with some 
banker for my support. 

“ I cannot say that I was either surprised or hurt 
at his course. I rather enjoyed the thought of liberty, 


2 


HO SALTED WITH FIRE. 

and decided upon Paris as my future residence. I 
notified my father of the fact, and received in reply 
the address of the hanker with whom my funds were 
lodged, but not a single word of parental advice, not 
one caution against the countless dangers and tempta- 
tions which awaited my untried youth in that gay and 
licentious city. Young, ardent, and impulsive, utterly 
ignorant of the world’s ways and wickedness, I was 
left to sink or swim, as fate dictated. 

“ A few months after my settlement in very hum- 
ble lodgings I was informed, through a London bank- 
ing-house, that my maternal uncle, a wealthy East 
India nabob, learning that I was keeping an establish- 
ment in Paris, desired to add something to my income, 
and had deposited certain moneys with them for my 
yearly use and benefit. The amount sounded like 
unbounded riches to me, for heretofore I had been 
obliged to practise the strictest economy in the expen- 
diture of every sou. I immediately removed into 
handsome apartments in a fashionable quarter of the 
city, and, for the first time in my life, enjoyed the 
advantages that good birth and good fortune confer. 
I speedily had an extensive acquaintance, and, living 
in elegant style, I did not scruple to accept the invi- 
tations that were showered upon ‘ le bel Anglais /’ 
and soon I had plunged, with eager relish, into the 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


Ill 


vortex of fashionable life, though not of fashionable 
follies. I was not vicious naturally, and my life had 
been so secluded and simple that I shrank with almost 
womanish loathing from vice and dissipation. 

“ One night at the theatre, I saw, sitting alone in 
a private box, a lady whose marvellous beauty rivetted 
my gaze for the rest of the evening. When she rose 
to go I followed her, but the crowd was so dense that 
I did not reach the street until her escort had placed 
her in the carriage. He was an acquaintance of mine, 
and when I eagerly asked to be presented to his beau- 
tiful charge, he smiled at my enthusiasm, and said, 
u ‘ If you can survive until to-morrow night, I will 
introduce you with pleasure. She will be at the Eng- 
lish ambassador’s ball, and, if you have cards, the 
occasion will be particularly felicitous, for, like your- 
self, she is a most beautiful dancer.’ 

u 6 1 have cards, of course ; but why not call with 
me to-morrow morning ? ’ I urged. 

“ 6 Simply because it would be useless trouble. 
Madame, for some mysterious reason of her own, 
never receives in the morning,’ he replied. 

“ I had, therefore, to curb my impatience until the 
following night. 

“I went to the ball, was presented to the siren, 
and received by her with marked favor. She danced 


112 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


repeatedly with me, and finally dismissed her escort 
most cavalierly to allow me the honor of seeing her 
home. When I reached my own rooms I was in a 
state of complete infatuation. I was only eighteen, 
remember, and this beautiful creature was the first 
woman I had ever fancied. My heart awoke with a 
bound, and I fell — yes, literally fell — blindly, madly, 
hopelessly, in love with her, or rather what I fancied 
her to be. 

“ She was the childless widow of an Indian officer, 
and, except yourself, the most wonderfully beautiful 
creature that I have ever beheld. She was above 
medium height, with a figure full almost to volup- 
tuousness, but so exquisitely proportioned that you 
scarcely saw the tendency. Her eyes were liquidly 
soft, her features regular and delicate. The vivid 
crimson of her velvety lips trenched upon the lily-like 
pallor of her silken skin, whose fairness was height- 
ened by the superb coronal of raven hair that crowned 
her' graceful head. Her voice was soft and low, her 
movements slow and dreamy. Indeed, there was a 
sort of delicious languor over the whole woman 
that was strangely attractive to a nature as restless and 
impetuous as mine. 

“ She was not intellectual or cultivated — quite the 
reverse; but the most common-place remark made 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


113 


by such beautiful lips, and in that soft, rich voice, 
sounded like an inspiration. 

“ I cannot paint in mere words the perfection of 
physical beauty, the nameless fascination she pos- 
sessed. She was, in brief, one of those fatal Circean 
women who seem born to lure men to ruin. I 
never gave a thought to her age, in fact, I never 
thought of anything but herself when I was with her, 
and that was nearly all the time. 

“ From the first she had distinguished me with pecu- 
liar favor ; and when, after a month’s acquaintance, I 
addressed her, she accepted me at once, and offered 
no opposition to my eager wish for an immediate 
union. After a brief engagement of two weeks we 
were accordingly married. 

“ Completely carried away by mad passion, I thought 
of nothing but winning my wife, and omitted to 
notify my father of my matrimonial designs until 
several weeks after they had become an accomplished 
fact. In his reply to the letter containing the ti- 
dingSj. he said, — I remember every word, — 

“ ‘ If I did not know that your inconceivable folly 
will entail a far heavier punishment than my dis- 
pleasure could inflict, I would never forgive you. As 
it is, I wish you joy of the treasure you were in such 
hot haste to secure. I knew the woman whom you 


114 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


so dutifully ask me to accept as a daughter twenty 
years ago. I was a dangler in her train before you 
were born; and if your infatuation outlasts your 
honeymoon, you are a more absolute fool than I con- 
ceive it possible for a child of mine to be.’ 

“ Such was my father’s congratulation upon my 
wedding ; and, except that he was my father, it was 
pretty much what I deserved. That letter was the 
last he ever wrote to me. I wrote an indignant, and 
likewise ignorant, defence of my wife, and had it 
returned without a word of comment. 

“ I need not tell you how my eyes were first opened 
to the extent of my folly. I had verified the old 
adage of ‘ Marrying in haste to repent at leisure.’ 
And long and bitter as my repentance has been, I 
never tasted all its agony until now. 

“ My wife was an opium-eater, which was her 4 mys- 
terious reason ’ for never receiving visits in the morn- 
ing. It is a very common habit with persons who 
have lived in India and other relaxing climates ; and 
a more debasing practice cannot be found ; for while 
its deleterious effects develop but slowly in the 
physical system, it far outstrips all other intoxicating 
substances in the rapidity with which it vitiates and 
depraves the moral nature of its votaries. 

“ I had not been married one year when I found my 


SALTED WITH FIRE . 


115 


wife to be utterly unworthy of affection or esteem. 
She was ignorant, narrow-minded, and selfish ; inordi- 
nately fond of society, and seemed to live only for 
mere sensuous pleasure. In a short while, even her 
splendid beauty palled upon me. She became to me 
a terrible impersonation of Coleridge’s conception of 
the Lady Geraldine, in that strange fragment , 4 Christa- 
bel.’ I could fancy I saw the reptile soul beneath its 
beautiful flesh mask. 

“ She was recklessly extravagant, as vain and selfish 
people usually are ; and although she was heavily in 
debt when I married her, she did not scruple to in- 
crease her liabilities. But debt was a condition of 
affairs that my English sense of honor could not 
brook. And although she often found means to 
evade my orders, I sternly set my face against her 
incurring obligations to tradesmen that I could not 
discharge. She might make me miserable, but she 
should not make me dishonest. 

“ After a few years she began to fade — she was at 
least twenty years my senior — and, disappointed in 
many ways in her marriage with me, she began to 
resort recklessly to the use of opium. I endeavored 
to restrain her excesses, but my efforts were fruitless. 
She had learnt to hate me with all the venom of a 
narrow soul, and my interference resulted in nothing 


116 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


but stimulating her to still greater indulgence in her 
terrible vice. 

“Bitter contempt had replaced the love I once felt 
for her, and my life was inexpressibly dreary. At 
last, convinced of her worse than worthlessness, I de- 
termined to separate from her. Had I been like 
other men I could have found distraction from my 
domestic sorrows in the world around me ; I could 
have forgotten my unhappiness in the excitement of 
the gaming tables, or drowned the memory of it in 
wine. But my taste inclined to neither. I had, what 
seems to me to be rare even among gentlemen in 
these days, a strong sense of noblesse oblige , a feeling 
of personal honor in preserving my moral integrity. 
Since I was a gentleman with sword and shield, I 
chose, for simple honor’s sake, to keep the one stain- 
less and the other bright ; and this from no religious 
scruple, but mere personal pride. I would not con- 
descend to degrading pursuits ; and doubtless that 
intense pride had more to do than the world wots of, 
in winning for my race the sobriguet of the ‘ Virtu- 
ous De Veres.’ 

“ My father’s death occurring at this time, put me 
in possession of ample means, and settling a sufficient 
income upon the woman whom I had married, I left 
Paris, and since that day I have never seen her face. 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


117 


“ I was then only twenty-three ; now I am thirty- 
eight : and in the fifteen years that intervened I have 
been a restless wanderer on the face of the earth. My 
foot has pressed every shore ever touched by a white 
man’s tread. I have fought for Christian and Infidel, 
for crescent and cross, caring nothing which was right 
or wrong, only seeking to find in the mad rush of 
battle oblivion of my thrall. In India, Turkey, and 
Algeria, I have charged with the foremost ranks, hop- 
ing that some infidel cimeter would put a period to 
the life of which I was so weary. 

“ I sedulously avoided the company of women, not 
because I had lost my faith in them ; for while the 
memory of my gentle mother lingered in my heart, 
that I could never do ; but for the reason that love 
was a necessity of my nature, and I dared not risk the 
formation of another attachment, fettered as hopelessly 
as I was. But as years crept slowly away, an apathy, 
which I took to be the advance-guard of old age, fell 
upon me. My heart seemed to be a closed volume, 
whose seal no fingers save those of Azriel might 
unloose. And after my long exile of twenty-five 
years, a longing to revisit my childhood’s home pos- 
sessed me. My sister intended revisiting England, 
andT begged her to make my house her home and I 
would -join her there. 


118 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


“ Slie had grown up aqd married since we parted, 
I a lad of thirteen and she a dimpled babe of three. 
She was so young at the time of my marriage that 
she knew nothing save the bare fact that I had 
married neither wisely nor well ; and when she heard 
that I had lost my wife, believed most naturally that 
she was dead. I did not undeceive her: not from 
any sinister design of taking advantage in any way of 
her misconception, but simply because it was very 
painful to.revert to that portion of my life, connected 
as it was with scenes of such degradation and misery. 

“At length I came home, and walked through 
streets that had been unpressed by foot of mine for 
more than a score of years. Men looked me in the 
face and passed me by, unknowing and unknown. In 
the streets of my native village, in the domain of 
generations of my ancestors, no one knew me or cared 
for me. I was a stranger to them all. 

“ It was nothing more than I should have expected. 
It was only natural that it should be so. As a boy I 
had always been kept at home, and but few of the 
villagers knew me. I had been absent a quarter of a 
century, and had grown from a child into a middle- 
aged man. And no one knew that I was coming 
home. So, altogether, it was most natural. But I 
own I was disappointed. I had no right to expect 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


119 


anything else, but I had expected it ; and, at the time, 
the disappointment was most keen. 

“ Lonely and desolate, I turned my steps to the 
church, meaning to visit my mother’s grave. I had 
obtained the key of the private entrance from Lillian, 
and soon I was bending sorrowfully over the only 
familiar object that greeted my coming home. As I 
knelt beside her marble image, sadly recalling her lost 
love and tenderness, a voice of surpassing sweetness 
broke in upon the twilight gloom, chanting that grand 
old anthem, 4 Comfort ye, my people.’ I listened to 
the clear, liquid tones with a keen delight, which ere 
long melted into sadness ; and soon bitter tears were 
raining down from fountains that had long been 
sealed. I had meant to leave the church before you 
came down, but when I heard your light step upon 
the stair, a sudden desire to see your face came over 
me, and I waited in the shadow of a column for your 
approach. If you remember, you stood in the door- 
way watching the sunset, and when you turned, its 
glory was shining in your eyes, and I saw your face 
4 as it had been the face of an angel.’ From that 
moment, Helen, I loved you. 

“ Perhaps you read as much in my earnest gaze, for 
I saw the rose-flush in your cheeks deepen into crim- 
son beneath my glance. Recalled to myself by your 


120 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


lovely embarrassment, I left the church, and conceal- 
ing myself behind the wall, I waited until you came 
out, and followed you home. "When you entered Rose 
Cottage I knew that you were the peerless Miss 
Tressylian, whose praises the two Lillians had chanted 
in no measured terms. 

“ It is needless to trace out in detail the growth of 
my love. From the first you filled the void in my 
heart and life. And, as I watched you, day by day, 
and saw your exquisite nature unfold like leaves from 
the heart of a rose, each hour developing some new 
grace and charm, I learned to love you with a passion 
as deep and ardent as it was hopeless. Over and over 
again, when I have parted from you, have I resolved 
to return immediately to the continent, and strive by 
action and absence to obliterate your image ; and 
the next morning would find me still listening to your 
musical voice, still gazing upon your exquisite face, 
blindly trusting to my powers of self-control to con- 
ceal the passion I had no power to flee from or sub- 
due. 

“ But, Helen, believe me, I never for one instant 
dreamed of telling you of my love ; and had I for 
one moment imagined that I was risking your hap- 
piness, I think, I believe, I would have had honor 
enough to leave you. But I never dreamed of such a 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


121 


possibility. With all the self-distrust of love, I 
thought I was too old and world-worn a man to win 
the regard of so young and innocent a heart. The 
sweet simplicity of your manners deceived me, and I 
looked upon you as some glad, happy child-woman, 
the current of whose guileless life was as yet unstirred 
by the unsealing of the deeper wells of passion and 
love. 

“ My reasoning may have been shallow and sophis- 
tical ; I may have believed there was no danger 
simply because I wished to believe it — for all men 
are selfish and self-indulgent, and I am but a man. 
But I was honest in one thing : I never intended to 
breathe one word of it to you. I could not govern 
my heart and eyes, but I could, or at least I thought 
I could, hold my tongue. Twice, however, the con- 
fession had nearly escaped me. You may remember 
one evening on the colonnade, and again when I was 
reading Jane Eyre, the very words were trembling on 
my tongue. Your exquisite dignity saved me then, 
and that night I determined to leave Seaforth Court 
forever; but, with the dawning of the next day’s 
sun, my resolution vanished. I was like a moth 
fluttering around a flame, unable to resist its attrac- 
tions, and yet conscious that it must be destruction in 
the end. I could not leave you. Man that I had 


122 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


thought myself, from many a stern test unshrink- 
ingly endured, I was weaker than a child where you 
were concerned. I had no self-mastery when it came 
to a question of parting from you. 

“ The day of my sister’s departure arrived, and I 
thought with mingled sorrow # and relief that I had 
endured the ordeal honorably. Alas ! I left the 
library when I heard you approaching, not daring to 
risk the private interview that I knew Lillian had 
planned ; but with characteristic weakness I hid my- 
self in the conservatory, where I could command a 
full view of you. 

“ You cannot have forgotten the rest. The sight of 
your tears overcame every sentiment but love. 1 flew 
to your side, fully determined to express nothing but 
affectionate regret at the interruption of our friend- 
ship, and in the first sentence I found myself declar- 
ing the most ardent love. You did not repulse me. 
I realized for the first time that my affection was re- 
turned ; and oh ! Helen, I would have been more or 
less than man had I been able to deny myself the 
rapture of that hour. It was the first real joy that 
had been mine in more than twenty years, and it was 
not until we had parted that I realized what I had 
done. When the full tide of memory did rush back 
upon me, then, my own Helen, the tortures of Hell 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


123 


could not exceed the agony that I suffered in my wild 
remorse, my bitter grief for you. 

“ That night I wrestled with my better nature hour 
after hour ; sometimes resolving to marry you at all 
hazards, and then determining to keep you in igno- 
rance of my marriage, and let our relations remain 
unbroken until death released me from my chain. 
The good finally prevailed enough to make me decide 
to tell you all, though, when I left, unsettled. But as 
mile after mile widened our separation, the memory 
of your trusting eyes and unquestioning faith re- 
proached me so sharply that I determined to tell you 
all at once, cost what it might. I would not write. I 
knew if you loved me that my presence would soften 
the tidings, my lips tell the story more tenderly than 
a letter. And though to me a blind, voiceless medium 
would have been far easier, though I shrank with un- 
utterable dread from witnessing the grief I had in- 
flicted, I chose not to spare myself one pang. 

“ As soon as I saw Lillian safe in her husband’s care 
I hurried back, giving myself no rest by night or day, 
fearing my courage might flag. I was just going out 
to seek you when you came in. 

“ And now, Helen, dearest, only beloved, you have 
heard all. Condemn me I know you must ; but pity 
while you blame. My only regret, my sole remorse, 


124 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


is but for jou. The woman who was my wife long 
ago forfeited all moral, if not legal, claims upon me. I 
love you wholly, solely, entirely ; and I will love you 
so long as life holds its own in the citadel of my heart. 
Nor would I have it otherwise save for your dear sake. 
I can never forgive myself the sorrow I have brought 
on you. But, oh ! Helen, in mercy tell me you for- 
give it, and that, guilty as I am, you do not quite de- 
spise me.” 

His low, musical voice, full of pathos and self-re- 
proach, stirred the profoundest depths of my soul. 
For one moment right and wrong, moral and reli- 
gious barriers, went down before the wild tide of 
human love and agony. I started up, exclaiming 
brokenly, 

“Forgive! despise you! how could I do either 
when I love you ? I do not blame you in the least,” 
and turning, I held out both my hands. 

He sprang to my side and took me in a close em- 
brace, and unresisting I hid my face within his bosom, 
and sobbed with ever-deepening woe. 

Oh! how I loved him! My whole soul fainted 
within me at the thought that we must part. He had 
no power to comfort me, for his breast was heaving 
convulsively with his effort to subdue his emotion, 
and as he bent down to kiss me his burning tears fell 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


125 


fast upon my cheek. Oh ! the fierce agony that sprang 
into life at their touch. 

* * * * * * * 

At length conscience, that stern monitor, awoke, 
and as my passion of tears subsided I withdrew from 
his encircling arms. He made no effort to detain me. 
Indeed, there was a touching humbleness in his man- 
ner that was harder to be resisted than any words 
could possibly have been. As I turned to go, I said, 

“ You will leave here immediately, will you not? 
for we must never meet again.” 

“Never! oh, Helen — ” he began. 

“ Never,” I repeated firmly. “ It is wisest and best 
that we should part forever.” 

He held out his arms with the most imploring ges- 
ture, and I, doubting my own strength to resist, 
turned from him and flew rather than walked out of 
the house, down the long avenue, and home, through 
the gathering gloom ; never pausing to take breath, 
never daring to look back : uncertain whether the 
sounds that filled my ears were my own heart-beats or 
pursuing footsteps, I hurried on, and just at our gate 
fell almost exhausted in Dr. Stuart's arms. 

“ Why, Miss Helen, what is the matter ? ” he asked 
anxiously. 


126 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


“ Nothing,” I gasped, as soon as I could speak. 
“ Only it is so dark that I was frightened.” 

As we entered the hall he said again, 

“ You are so very pale ; are you quite sure that 
nothing frightened you ? ” 

“ Nothing but myself,” I said, as carelessly as might 
be. 

Tea was waiting, and soon after they took their 
seats Dr. Stuart said to mamma, 

“ I noticed the arrival of Colonel De Yere mentioned 
in a late London paper. I suppose he came over to 
meet his sister, for he seems to have expatriated him- 
self completely.” 

“ I suppose he did,” said mamma ; and then after a 
pause she added, 

“ I wonder if his wife is still living ? ” 

“His wife! why, I never heard that he had 
one.” 

“ Oh, yes ; he was married when a mere lad to a 
very worthless and designing woman. She was a 
widow and many years the oldest ; so it could only 
have been a speculation on her part. I have heard 
that they separated shortly before his father’s death ; 
but the affair was kept so much a family secret that 
nothing positive was ever heard about it.” 

I listened in the dumb apathy that falls upon us 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


127 


with a crushing sorrow, and thought if I had told 
mamma of my acquaintance with him the sorrow 
might still have been mine, but the horrible, sudden 
•shock would have been spared me. We are strange 
reasoners sometimes, even in the midst of despair. 

About twelve o’clock' that night nurse roused me 
with the tidings that mamma had another hemor- 
rhage. Dr. Stuart was sent for immediately, and 
devoted himself to her with the most unwearied care 
for the three dreadful days and nights in which her 
very life seemed hanging on a thread. 

When she began to amend, and the fear of losing 
her was lightened, my own sorrow began to press 
more heavily upon me. Dr. Stuart and nurse watched 
me anxiously, and, declaring that anxiety and close 
confinement had been too much for me, they excluded 
me as much as possible from mamma’s apartments ; y 
and when thus excluded, I would wander about like 
a ghost, aimless and hopeless ; or sit motionless in 
one place, seeing nothing and heeding nothing, en- 
during that dreariest of sorrow’s many phases, dumb 
apathy and dull despair : or, again, melted to a sud- 
den passion of tears, by the blithe trilling of some 
happy bird, or the faint breath of a flower as it came 
wafted in through the open casement, or the merry 
laugh of some happy child at play. 


128 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


I never dared allow myself to think of Colonel 
De Yere. I put his memory steadily behind me, 
and strove to forget him. Alas ! as if love ever can 
forget. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

One evening, about two weeks after mamma’s 
attack, she called me to her side, and said, 

“ Helen, has Dr. Stuart told you how I am?” 

“ Ho, mamma ; why ? You are not worse, are 
you ? ” I asked, in quick alarm. 

“ Ho worse, my child, but likewise no better ; and 
Dr. Stuart says, I will never get any better here. 
My only chance for prolonged life is a speedy re- 
moval to Italy or the south of France.” 

u Oh, mamma, is there nothing we can do ? Did 
Dr. Stuart suggest no way ? ” I asked, vaguely. 
Mamma smiled a little, and said, 

“ He certainly suggested a way, my darling ; and I 
have less hesitation in mentioning it to you now than 
I would have had a month ago. Your face con- 
vinced me, the night of his return from Scotland, that 
you are not indifferent to Dr. Stuart ; for if ever 

love’s light and love’s roses glowed in eyes and cheeks, 
6 * 



130 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


they did in yours that night. But as I may have 
been mistaken in regard to your feelings, I want you to 
understand from the first that your own feelings and 
wishes are alone to be consulted in the decision you 
make respecting the proposition that I am requested 
to lay before you. The few days or even years of life 
that may be left me, shall not be purchased at the ex- 
pense of your happiness, my precious, unselfish child. 

“ Dr. Stuart begged me to assure you of his unal- 
tered love, and ask if you can consent to marry him. 
If you will, the marriage can take place at once, and 
he will carry us to Naples, or where you will, before 
the cold weather sets in. Should you marry him, 
my sole earthly care will be removed, and whenever 
I die my mind will be at rest about the future com- 
fort of my precious child. If you love him, as I 
think you do, your happiness is beyond a fear; for 
he is worthy even of my peerless Helen. But if I 
am mistaken, and you had rather not become his 
wife, tell me so frankly, and if it be the will of the 
Lord, who doeth all things well, to spare me longer to 
you, then He will provide some other and better 
way ; and in all things, His blessed will be done.” 

I listened in dumb despair. Mamma’s life was 
resting upon my words ; and to save her I must con- 
sent to become the wife of one man when my whole 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


131 


heart and soul was filled with the image of another. 
At first I could not, would not, entertain the thought, 
it was too horrible and revolting ; but as I rested my 
head against her knee, and felt the soft touch of her 
caressing fingers as she tenderly smoothed back the 
ringlets from my brow, a better spirit came over me. 
I remembered all the long years of her tender love 
and care, and that the dear life was so fast drawing to 
a close, and I might save her if I would; and I felt 
that my highest duty was to her, cost me what it 
might. I struggled long and bitterly with myself ere 
my mind was made up — one of those wild, inward con- 
flicts that give no outward sign, but plough deep fur- 
rows in the soul. At length I raised my head and 
said steadily, 

“ Mamma, tell Dr. Stuart I consent.” 

And, stooping to kiss her pale cheek, I hastened 
to my own room, and locking myself in, I gave way 
to an agony of grief. Ah! those hours of fierce 
Conflict, when “ my bruise was incurable and my 
wound grievous ! ” 

In the twilight nurse came to my door and said, 

“ Miss Helen, dear, Dr. Stuart wishes to see you, 
if you please.” 

I felt like some hunted creature. 

As I entered the sitting-room Dr. Stuart came for- 


132 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


ward to meet me. He was very much agitated, and 
strove in vain to steady his voice as he said, 

“Mrs. Tressylian has told me of her conversation 
with you, and I have come in person to plead my suit. 
I need not repeat the assurances of my love. You 
must know that my whole heart is unalterably yours. 
And if you will give me the dear right of caring for 
you, you shall never know another sorrow from which 
human love and forethought can shield you. 

“ I had not meant to hurry your decision, but your 
mother’s health requires such constant care; and, 
knowing your inflexible pride, I venture to plead for 
her sake, as well as my own happiness, that you will 
give me a son’s right to share your devotion to her. 
Can you, will you give it to me ? ” 

He ceased speaking and waited my reply. 

I stood in voiceless agony, striving for strength to 
speak the words that would sacrifice my life to mam- 
ma. Life, did I say ? Had it been only existence the 
decision would not have cost me one pang. After a 
pause, that seemed like an eternity to my wrung 
heart, Dr. Stuart said very gently, 

“ Be merciful, Helen, and end my suspense, if it be 
only to deny me this dear little hand.” 

The conflict was ended. I held out my hand, say- 
ing brokenly, 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


133 


“ Take it, if you will, but ’tis all I have to 
give.” 

His exceeding happiness touched me in spite of my 
selfish sorrow. He drew me down beside him on a 
sofa, and for once laid aside the modest reserve which 
was one of the characteristics of his manner. The 
flood-gates of his soul seemed uplifted, and as he re- 
vealed in such frank, manly words, the depth and 
intensity of his love for me, the thought that I was 
deceiving him and giving him only dry husks when 
he thought he "was receiving fresh, rich fruit, overcame 
me. I would marry him, if needs be; but I would 
not deceive him by allowing him to believe that he 
had w r on my heart when I was giving him but unwil- 
lingly my hand ; and slipping from beside him until 
I w r as kneeling at his feet, I exclaimed -passionately, 

“ I am unworthy of this love ! I have none to give 
you in return ! I feel nothing for you but affection 
and gratitude, not one spark of the love that a wife 
should have ! I will disappoint and chill you ; I can 
never make you happy ; I will marry you if you wish 
it, but I will never deceive you by letting you think 
that I am giving you my heart as well as this wretched, 
worthless hand.” 

And choked with convulsive sobs I hid my face in 
his bosom. I felt his strong heart beating thick and 


134 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


fast beneath my cheek, and at last he said, very 
quietly, but with evident effort, 

“ Helen, my dearest love ! I do not understand this 
extreme emotion. Is it merely maidenly reluctance 
to assume new ties? or is there some deeper objection 
beneath it? You shall not marry me unless you really 
are wdlling to be my wife. If you have any objection 
to it, it is not too late to withdraw your consent : only 
tell me frankly, and everything shall be at an end 
between us ; for though I love you with all my man- 
hood’s strength and ardor, my affecti&n is not selfish. 
I do not wish you to marry me if it will cost you a 
single pang. Dearly as I love you — and I think no 
woman was ever more beloved — I would relinquish all 
claims upon you if there were any one whom you pre- 
ferred to me. - 

He paused a moment as if a new thought had oc- 
curred to him, , and then added, 

“Tell me frankly, my darling; is there any one to 
whom, if my suit was withdrawn, you would more 
willingly give the hand I ask ? I know you must have 
seen men who are far more qualified to win regard 
than I am.” 

His nobility, his unexampled generosity, roused in 
me an answering spirit. I lifted my tear-stained face 
from, his breast, and said earnestly, 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


135 


“ You are the best, the noblest of men ; there is no 
one but you whom I would marry. But bear with 
me a little while : it is all so strange and sudden.” 

My voice failed in spite of me, and my tears flowed 
anew ; but he comforted me with such loving sym- 
pathy, such unquestioning faith ; he took me with 
such brave confidence, such generous trust, and I was 
so unworthy of it all ! — even with his tender words 
sounding in my ears, my heart, heavy and grief-laden, 
was sickening with a vain longing to weep out its sor- 
rows upon another breast. When at last he rose to 
seek mamma, he placed a ring upon the hand he was 
holding, saying, with smiling embarrassment, 

“ I have worn this ring so long, hoping one day to 
be allowed to place it upon this precious little hand, 
and now, ‘after so many days,’ the dea^ wish is real- 
ized at last.” 

“ Are you happy ?” I asked, wistfully. 

A deep flush came into his cheek, a lustrous flash 
kindled in his violet eyes, as he took me in his arms 
and said earnestly, passionately, 

“My darling, my happiness is perfect and satis- 
fying.” 

These words comforted me a little. If I could 
make mamma and Dr. Stuart happy, those two to 
whom I owed so much, it mattered little what I suf- 


136 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


fered ; and, married or single, I was equally lost to 
the only man with whom marriage could have been 
happiness to me. So, perhaps, it was better thus; 
but, oh ! it was hard to think it then, when heart and 
soul alike shrank from the sacrifice. 

The ring Dr. Stuart put upon my hand was the 
diamond I had given to have sold for me long before, 
and which he had purchased himself and thus re- 
stored to me. His thoughtfulness touched me deeply, 
while the transaction in itself wounded my morbid 
pride. 

It was settled between mamma and Dr. Stuart that 
we should be married in three weeks, which would 
make our wedding fall upon his birthday, and, as he 
said, make the one date the anniversary of both the 
beginning and perfection of his life. I did not op- 
pose it. Terribly soon as it seemed, I felt that what- 
ever had to be done had best be done quickly, for I 
knew not how long my strained nerves could bear the 
stress. 

Sometimes I felt so sorry for Dr. Stuart. I knew 
how much he was deceived ; for, despite my assur- 
ances to the contrary, he believed that I loved him, 
and when he discovered his mistake, as sooner or later 
he would certainly have to do, the disappointment 
would be so^bitter. He would sit beside me in the 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


137 


twilight, and paint with such lingering, loving touches 
our future life: how happy we would be together: 
how we would go abroad and travel, and see the world 
that I had so wished to see: how the whole world 
should be taxed to minister to my pleasure : and how T 
much happier and brighter life would he to him when 
he had a dear little wife to come home to when his 
day’s work was done : all the things that fond lovers 
talk about and find happiness in anticipating ; and I 
would listen silently, answering as pleasantly <as I 
could w T hen he appealed directly to me, hut always 
with the refrain in my heart w T hile he planned things 
that I had wished to do, 

“ Dust and ashes ! wishes realized only when their 
fulfillment will bring an added pain ! Apples of 
Sodom, fair and beautiful to behold, hut dust and 
ashes in your grasp !” 

He was very anxious about me. I could see that 
in his tender watchfulness and loving patience with 
all my variations of temper and feeling. I believe, 
although he never even remotely hinted such a thing 
to me, that he thought my mind affected. He knew 
that there was hereditary insanity in my family, and 
to what else could he attribute my nervous prostra- 
tion and wasting depression? The disease always 
took the form of melancholy with us ; and how could 


138 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


he dream that it was a real sorrow which had laid its 
heavy hand upon me ? 

Sometimes his unvarying tenderness soothed and 
comforted me, for I loved him as if he had been my 
only brother, with a deep, quiet affection which was 
more hopelessly removed from love than even active 
dislike would have been ; and then at other times 
his mere presence chafed me almost beyond endurance, 
and it was only by the exercise of the most rigid self- 
control that I could manage to endure it. Sometimes 
he would see this and yield instantly to my wish; 
and then I would be so sorry for him, for I knew 
how much I must be disappointing him, though he 
never even hinted it to me. 

For myself, I let things drift, striving to think 
neither of the past nor the future, but to absorb my- 
self wholly in the present. My success, however, 
was but indifferent. I was wasting away to a shadow. 
I could neither eat nor sleep ; or, if I did fall into a 
troubled slumber, it was only to be tortured with 
dreams that were worse than consciousness. Nurse 
watched me sorrowfully, and tried with all her skill 
to tempt my fickle appetite ; and when I would turn 
with loathing from the food she brought me, which I 
always tasted to please her, she would shake her head 
and turn dejectedly away. At last, entering my room 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


139 


very suddenly one day, and finding me in tears, her 
anxious affection could hear silence no longer, and she 
asked me what was the matter? I neither could nor 
would inform her, and she exclaimed, sorrowfully, 

“ Child ! child ! you are killing yourself. You 
can’t hide your misery from the eyes that love you. 
I see you wasting day by day, with all your pretty 
color fading, and your sweet, playful ways laid aside. 
You don’t eat enough to keep a midge alive, and, 
come to your door when I will at night, I see your 
lamp burning and hear your light step across the 
floor, back and forth, back and forth, as long as I 
stand there. You have some trouble on your mind, 
my bonny bairn. Oh ! tell your old nurse what it 
is.” 

I leaned against her and cried as if my heart would 
break ; but to all her entreaties I had but one reply 
to make, 

“ Oh ! nurse, I have nothing to tell.” 

She left me at last, sorrowfully incredulous; and 
then, by her very tenderness and compassion she made 
my self-control harder to maintain. Sympathy un- 
nerved me. I only wanted to be let alone. 

I look back upon those days, now, with a feeling of 
absolute wonder that I survived them. The sky 
seemed brass, the earth iron, everything was a 


140 SALTED WITH FIRE. 

mockery, everything an utter weariness. Life, death, 
love, religion, everything bored me. I never penned 
a line or read a page. I could not form a prayer 
with either heart or lips ; I knelt down from habit, 
and as my lips moved to form the familiar words, a 
mocking, inward voice would whisper, 

“ What is the use ? you don’t mean what you say : 
and if you did, there is no power that can or will 
save you. God does not pity you, or He would have 
saved you from this woe. Will He perform a miracle, 
and move heaven and earth to undo His own work ? 
why pray ?” 

And then I would rise; and in those days such 
were my devotions. 

But God did pity, and when I had endured the 
furnace-fires, “ At eventide there was light.” 




CHAPTER XX. 

I had never ventured to leave the cottage, fearing 
to meet Colonel De Yere, but as days merged into 
weeks without my hearing anything of him, I pre- 
sumed he had gone abroad again ; and one evening, 
just a week before my wedding-day, sick of the house 
wherein I had suffered so much, and wearying to be 
entirely alone and freed from the loving scrutiny of 
the eyes that kept continual watch upon me, I walked 
down upon the sands. The spot I had determined to 
revisit had been a favorite resort of mine from its 
loneliness, and a sick fancy to see it again had haunted 
me for several days. 

The evening was gloomy and threatening, and a 
searching wind blew fitfully from the coast. A dull, 
leaden sky stretched across from sea to hill, unvaried 
by a single cloud, save at the water’s edge, where a 
lurid, purple line broke up its gray monotony. A 
barren waste of sand lay white and desolate around, 


142 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


strewed with shells and seaweed ; and high overhead 
rang out, ever and anon, the sea-fowl’s melancholy cry. 
Close by the moaning surf, and washed at morn and 
eve by the restless tide, rose up, stern and gray, a mass 
of craggy rocks. Here I had often sat and dreamed 
such dreams as would never again tint my ashen life 
with their roseate and golden splendor. And here, 
lonely and desolate as the scene I had chosen, I sat 
down and gazed with hopeless agony in the face of 
my despair. While I thus mused a quick, impatient 
footstep crushed the sands at my feet, and, as I looked 
up, dizzy with heart-beats, two eager hands grasped 
my own, two glowing eyes gazed upon me with un- 
utterable love, and Colonel De Yere’s rich, harp-like 
voice called me by name. I sprang to my feet, ex- 
claiming wildly, 

“ Why, oh why, have you come back ? ” 

“ Because I was dying away from you. I could 
bear it no longer, he answered passionately. 

“ Then I must leave you. Release my hands in- 
stantly, and let me go.” 

“ Helen, my darling,” he said softly, without heed- 
ing my request, — “ Why do you treat me so hardly ? 
Do you know how long I have been watching and 
waiting to see you? longing with unutterable desire 
just to be near you, to touch your hand, or even the 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


143 


hem of your dress, just to be conscious of your dear 
presence ; and now that we are together why poison 
the joy with such cruel coldness ? I cannot harm you : 
I would not if I could. Then why shrink from me 
as if I was some deadly thing? Can you not trust me 
for the few moments that we will he together ? ” 

I felt my wild love surging over heart and soul at 
the music of his voice, and, bracing myself with a 
strong effort of will, I said resolutely, 

“ It is not a question of trust, Colonel De Y ere, it 
is one of simple honor ; I must not stay with you, 
because you have a living wife, and I am betrothed to 
another man. Respect his rights, if you do not re- 
gard my wishes, and at once release my hands.” 

He gazed upon me with a look of blank surprise 
and horror as he exclaimed, 

“ Betrothed ! Oh, Helen ! you surely cannot mean 
it ! Tell me that it was a jest, a dream, anything but 
the truth ! Hnsay those cruel words, for oh ! Helen, 
I cannot hear it.” 

His eyes, filled with appealing anguish, sought my 
face as he spoke. I turned away, unable to witness 
his sorrow, as I answered steadily, 

“ I cannot unsay the truth ; I am engaged ; hut 
my marriage can raise no greater harrier between us 
than already exists in your own.” 


144 


SALTED WITH FIRE . 


He bent bis face down npon my bands that be still 
held, and exclaimed, in a voice wrung with agony, 

“ Oh God! oh God ! ” 

How instinctively that cry rises to our lips when a 
sudden storm of sorrow beats us down, and, blindly 
conscious of our weakness, we appeal to an Almighty 
Power for strength. The first unreasoning impulse 
makes us reach out through “ the darkness that may 
be felt ” for a guiding Hand, crying out for succor to 
the One only who can give us strength to bear the 
blow. 

But Colonel De Yere was not a man to yield with- 
out a bitter struggle, even to the inevitable ; and soon 
recovering his self-possession, he began eagerly to beat 
down my resolution, heaping argument upon argument 
against my marrying, and finally capping the whole 
with the statement that I did not love Hr. Stuart. 

“No,” I said firmly, “I do not love him as such a 
noble man deserves to be loved, but I shall none the 
less marry him.” 

“ Helen,” he cried desperately, “ you know not 
what you are doing. There are no fetters on earth 
so galling as those that bind you in a loveless mar- 
riage. I know it in all its bitterness, and, although I 
am a man, and consequently had far less to bear in 
married life than you will, I can tell you from my 


SALTED WITH FIRE . 


145 


own experience there is no worse fate to be encoun- 
tered. Believe me, you will regret such a step more 
and more each day of your life. Let me teach you 
through my dearly-bought knowledge, and do not 
condemn yourself wilfully to such hopeless misery.” 

“Is it kind, is it generous,” I said, interrupting 
him passionately, “for you to paint the picture in 
darker colors than it must needs wear to my own im- 
agination ? If I must needs suffer martyrdom, should 
yours he the breath to blow the flames up brighter ? 
Strengthen me for the sacrifice, instead of striving to 
weaken my resolve.’^ 

“ But, my darling,” he answered softly, “ I do not 
see any necessity for your sacrificing yourself. As 
you say, an impassable harrier already interposes be- 
tween us. Why should you add anything to it? You 
will not quench your love for me by marrying 
another. You will not forget that I love you one 
day the sooner because you are Dr. Stuart’s wife. 
Why then subject yourself to the added pain of mar- 
rying?” 

“ I cannot afford to remain single,” I cried bitterly. 
“ My marriage is simply a question of shillings and 
pence. I marry because thus only can I command 
the means of prolonging the life of my beloved and 
helpless mother.” 


7 


146 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


“And so you mean to speculate upon your per- 
sonal charms, to sell yourself for so many pounds jper 
annum ! Truly, the ambition is a lofty one, though 
not quite what one would have expected in a daugh- 
ter of the Tressylians,” he said, with bitter sarcasm. 

I saw through the bitterness down to the despair- 
ing love which prompted it, and answered calmly, 

“ One day perhaps you will regret the insult you 
have offered me, and the injustice you have done me 
by that cruel speech. For myself, I see my own duty 
too clearly to be turned from it either by your per- 
suasions or taunts, though the latter might well have 
been spared me.” 

He flushed crimson with shame as he answered im- 
pulsively, 

“Forgive me, oh forgive that cowardly, unmanly 
speech ! I do not believe it, I did not mean it when 
I spoke, but I am mad, wild, reckless, at the thought 
of your belonging to any other man. I shall not 
suffer it : this wrong to us both shall not be done : I 
have ample wealth ; let me supply the funds for which 
you are willing to sacrifice so much.” 

My cheek flushed proudly as I coldly replied, 

“You forget yourself, and everything else, when 
you venture to make any such proposition. Of all 
men you are the last from whom I either could or 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


147 


would receive pecuniary aid. Let us end the discus- 
sion : it only inflicts useless pain upon us both.” 

A moment of silence elapsed, and then he said, bend- 
ing both head and knee before me, and speaking hur- 
riedly and as if half afraid, 

“ Then, Helen, hear me yet again. Let me marry 
you. Give me of all men the sole right to care for 
you. You know how wildly I adore, I worship you.” 

“ This is worst of all. You seem to forget that you 
are a married man when you dare to insult me with 
such a proposition,” I said passionately, my face flam- 
ing with hot anger as I spoke. 

“ Hay, Helen, flush not so deeply. I did not mean 
to insult you : how could I ? Hor did I forget. But 
hear me out. I did not tell you quite all of my mis- 
erable history. Any ecclesiastical court would release 
me from that union. Let me sue for a divorce.” 

“ It would only be useless pain and exposure for you. 
I could never marry a divorced man. The Bible and 
every instinct of my own nature forbid it. Heath is 
the only divorce that I hold valid. There is nothing 
that can be done in this case but what I have resolved 
upon. Let us part now. I cannot bear this conflict 
any longer. I have suffered so much of late.” 

The fierce light faded out of his eyes as he gazed 
upon me and said softly, . 


148 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


“ It is because I would save you from future pain 
and grief, my darling, that I urge you to remain un- 
wedded. You will add a thousandfold to every pang 
you now endure if you marry without love. In pity 
to me, if not to yourself, dissolve this engagement. 
I cannot endure to think of you as any man’s wife. 
You are mine, and mine only. Oh! Helen, I love 
you, I cannot give you up.” 

I made no answer. Worn out with the struggle, I 
could only hide my face and weep until it seemed as 
if my very life was flowing out in the tears. He sat 
beside me striving to comfort me as he only could, but 
ever and anon the tide of his rebellious love broke 
over his lips in a wild spray of words, and he strove 
with passionate eagerness to make me yield. 

At length, stung by my silent resistance, he said 
bitterly, 

“ Helen, I do not believe that you ever loved me. 
If you had you could not sacrifice me to a mere scru- 
ple of your own unreasonable pride.” 

This injustice wrung from me an avowal that all his 
tender pleading had failed to elicit, and I exclaimed 
passionately, 

“ I have lavished all the worship of my soul upon 
you : I have made you, my idol, and bowed down be- 
fore you and worshipped you, and a jealous God has 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


149 


smitten me for it. I dare not resist Him : I am but 
a broken reed, a writhing worm in His grasp. Let 
me be guided by my own conscience in this woful 
crisis. Pity the weakness which makes it worse than 
death to resist your wishes, and because I love you, be 
generous and give me up.” 

“ Give you up ! My darling ! do you think I could, 
after what I have just heard? Never ! You are 
mine, and mine only, and neither man nor angel, 
Heaven nor Hell, shall come between us. Little 
child, I love you.” 

He lifted my drooping head and gazed full into my 
eyes as he uttered the last words in a tone of such in- 
tense feeling as defies description. 

The splendor of his appearance at that moment I 
can never forget. A rich flush glowed on his bronzed 
cheek, and his dark eyes were full of the superb light 
of love and triumph. His whole face was radiant; 
he looked as the conqueror of a hard-fought field 
might look when his adversary laid down his sword. 
His superb eyes dazzled me, and as my cheek crim- 
soned beneath his gaze, he laughed a low, sweet laugh 
of conscious power, and bending suddenly down 
kissed me full upon the mouth. The pressure of his 
lips recalled me with a pang of shame to myself. No 
man save Dr. Stuart; had a right to caress me thus, 


150 


8ALTED WITH FIRE. 


and straggling to escape liis arms I exclaimed remorse- 
fully, 

“ Oh ! how wrong, how sinful, how dishonorable 
this all is. I am betraying a noble man’s trust. I am 
false to my own plighted word. I have promised to 
marry him, and I will, cost what it may. Oh ! Ed- 
ward, strengthen me, pity me ; but as you are a man, 
do not tempt me to wilful dishonor.” 

The day was dying, and as I spoke the incoming 
tide washed up to the sands at my feet, and I said, 
rising as I spoke, 

“ Come, let us go ; the tide is coming in.” 

He rose and stood beside me, looking at the foam- 
capped waves as they retreated, and then throwing 
both arms around me he drew me to his breast, saying 
passionately, 

“ Helen, let us die here, clasped thus in each other’s 
arms. If we live, ’tis only to be cruelly parted. If 
we die, we will be together for all time.” 

I rested my face upon his bosom, and the temptation 
seemed irresistible. The thought of my nearly ap- 
proaching marriage ; the wild strife in my own heart ; 
the loathing and* repulsion which must deepen with 
each day of my new life; contrasted with the rest 
and oblivion of death, dying for his sake, in his arms, 
with no old or new ties to come between us. I was 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


151 


weak and shattered by suffering, and I stood unresist- 
ing in his strong clasp, with his warm kisses showered 
upon lips and cheeks, and felt with such perfect rest 
and comfort that the struggle was ended. 

The tide flowed in once more, higher than before, 
and as its cold waters broke over us my involuntary 
shudder made him hold me but the closer, as he whis- 
pered fondly, 

“ A few minutes longer, and the worst will he over, 
my brave, true-hearted darling.” 

And I listened as one in a dream, peaceful, fearless, 
and happy. And just then, clear over the sands rang 
out the evening chimes, and their first peal brought 
back to me with an agony of self-reproach the mem- 
ory of my mother. 

“ Mamma ! oh mamma !” I cried. “ Edward, my 
life is hers, not mine : I must live for her sake, for I 
am all she has.” 

But he only smiled dreamily upon me, and kissed 
me again and again. 

Every moment we delayed, the thought of her help- 
lessness and dependence upon me for everything, even 
life itself, her devoted love for me, and the wild sor- 
row that would wring her heart should I be taken so 
suddenly and cruelly from her, became more intol- 
erable. My selfishness assumed a monstrous, hideous 


152 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


form, and I said, counterfeiting a fear I did not feel, 
but well knowing that a thought of me was all that 
would influence him, 

“ Oh ! Edward, save me ! if you love me, save me 
from the horror of this death.” 

He started as if from a dream, and gathering me 
in his arms sprang with wonderful strength and agil- 
ity up the cliffs and far above the reach of the rising 
tide. 

Thoroughly humbled, and repentant for my suici- 
dal sin, as soon as I could speak I said earnestly, 

“ Let us part now : no good will result from a longer 
interview. But ere you go, with the horror of our 
late sin strong upon me, promise me that you will 
never again attempt to shorten the term of life-servi- 
tude that God has appointed you. We have sins 
enough to answer for without adding blood-guiltiness 
to them.” 

He would not answer this, and urged by love and 
fear I pleaded with him until the pledge was given, and 
then I said sorrowfully, 

“ How let us say farewell, and part.” 

He took my outstretched hand, but not to say fare- 
well : only to kneel before me and passionately im- 
plore me not to marry, using every weapon in his 
argument that jealous love and frantic despair could 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


153 


forge. Had my hair been any color bnt chestnut- 
brown, that day’s wild warfare would have bleached 
it like the sands on which I stood. Why should I 
re-paint that despairing scene, whose agonizing details 
are branded as by fire on my brain? ’Tis enough 
that I can say that, though tempted within and with- 
out, wrung by grief, and loving him as man is but 
rarely loved, I yet had strength to keep my faith un- 
broken. 

But, oh ! Almighty Lord ! that conquest cost me 
dear. 

At last even he saw the uselessness of strife, and 
yielded in despair ; and, as he bent over my hand, I 
felt his hot tears fall fast upon it. 

Into that hour I concentrated all the agony of years. 
I suffered until I lost the power to feel, and heard 
without comprehension his wild despair and passion- 
ate farewell. I dimly remember, nerved by a strength 
not my own, breaking from him at length and reel- 
ing, “ drunken, but not with wine,” over what seemed 
like endless space, until I reached home, and then, 
amidst a confusion of lights and voices, a sudden blank 
fell upon me, and I lost everything in a merciful in- 
sensibility. 

******* 

When I recovered consciousness Dr. Stuart was kneel- 
7* 


154 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


ing beside me, with his fingers on my wrist. I heard 
him tell mamma that he was at a loss to account for 
the extreme duration of the attack. It was clearly 
the result of strong nervous excitement : had I been 
unusually excited during the day ? Neither mamma 
nor nurse could reply satisfactorily to the question, 
and I was too much exhausted to talk. Every move- 
ment brought on a return of the faintness. 

Dr. Stuart sat by me several hours, and finding that 
I was rallying under treatment, he administered a 
powerful nervous sedative, and advised that I should 
be left alone ; and they all retired and left me to live 
over again and again the crowded agonies of the day, 
hearing Colonel De Vere’s voice in all its thrilling 
music of pleading and reproach, and feeling his tears 
still raining on my hands, until memory became one 
long vibration of agony. 




CHAPTER XXI. 

For two days I was ill, but on the third I insisted 
upon leaving my room. Dr. Stuart gently remon- 
strated against it, but I felt if I gave up then that it 
would be impossible for me ever to fulfill my engage- 
ment with him ; and I meant to save mamma’s life, 
come to me afterwards what might. 

She watched me anxiously all the while, but she had 
no reason to suspect me of anything but an overtaxed 
physique , and often said that Italy and rest would 
soon restore me to myself. I never left the house. I 
dared not risk another meeting with Colonel DeYere, 
who, I knew, was haunting my vicinity. 

One night, very late, I was standing by my window 
looking out; for, late in the season as it was, I was 
compelled to keep my casement open, as I was con- 
sumed with inward fever. Sleeplessness had become 
one of the minor shades in the sombreness of my 
condition, and I not unfrequently spent whole nights 


156 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


at my window, watching wearily for the slow-coming 
dawn. And while I thus stood a dark shadow fell 
upon the sward ! My heart leaped suddenly up, and 
then stood perfectly still, as the faint moonlight 
revealed the pale, worn face of Colonel De Vere. 
That moment was the crisis of my life. I felt that if I 
listened to a single word I would yield all he could 
ask ; one vibration of his tender voice w T ould break 
down all my strongholds; and wringing my hands 
with a wild, despairing gesture, I closed the window 
before his eyes ; and then, extinguishing my lamp, I 
fell upon my knees beside my couch and was kneeling 
there when the gray dawn crept in. Not that I had 
been praying ; for in all those weary hours but one 
sentence passed my lips : “ And he took Simeon and 
bound him before their eyes.” 

* * * * * * * 

And thus, with loitering agony, the days dragged 
slowly past. 

The eve before my bridal, nurse came iiito my 
room and said, “ I do not mean to pry into your 
affairs, Miss Helen, since you will not trust me ; but 
this morning, just after dawn, a gentleman called me 
into the shrubbery, and begged me to give you this let- 
ter the first moment I could see you alone. I said no 
at first ; for, Miss Helen, you know it doesn’t look 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


157 


just right to have secrets with strangers. But when 
he asked me again, with such sorrow in his face and 
voice, I could not find it in my heart to refuse. I 
ask you no questions about him, but if he is a lover 
I misdoubt if you knew your own mind when you 
said him nay. Whatever you do, my dear young 
lady, don’t marry without love. ’Tis not too late to 
change your mind. If you are in trouble let me help 
you : you know there is naught I would not do for 
my own bonny bairn, who laid in my breast and 
comforted my sore heart when God took my own 
little lamb to His arms.” 

“ If you had strangled me when I lay within your 
arms you could have helped me. How it is too 
late,” I said, bitterly, as I took the letter from her 
hand. 

It was from Colonel De Vere, and I could see how 
much he had suffered in the unsteadiness of his usu- 
ally bold, graceful chirography. I did not break the 
seal. I dared not trust my fainting heart to read the 
words penned by his dear hand. And so I wrote 
upon the cover, 

“ I will he married to-morrow morning. It is use- 
less for you to write or me to read. God help us 
both, if He can.” 

And, re-sealing it in another envelope, I handed it to 


158 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


nurse and asked lier to return it. She looked 
searchingly at me and said, 

“ Is this all you will let me do for you, Miss Helen ?” 

“It is all you can do, nurse,” I answered, as I 
turned my face away. She stood irresolute a moment, 
and then said, 

“ Miss Helen, may I tell you a story about your 
own people ? ” 

“Hot now, dear nurse ; some other time, please,” I 
said, wearily. 

“ Some other time will be too late, my precious 
lamb. Let me tell it now.” 

“ As you please then, nurse,” I said ; and she thus 
began : 

“’Twas in the reign of the blessed Martyr, Miss 
Helen, when the kingdom was rent with division, 
family arrayed against family, and house against house. 
Your people, of course, took sides, as they always did, 
with the king ; but their near neighbors, the Lords 
of Mortmaine, went with the Parliament. Lord 
Maurice de Mortmaine had long been a suitor of the 
Lady Adelicia Tressylian, but she did not favor him ; 
and, in the political troubles that followed, the families, 
being supporters of rival factions, held no farther 
intercourse with each other. 

“It happened in one of the battles that the old 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


159 


Lord Hugo Tressylian, Lady Adelicia’s father, and his 
nephew, Sir Kupert, her own true love, both fell into 
the hands of the rebels, and, as they had been very zeal- 
ous in the king’s behalf, they were condemned to die. 

“ Lord Maurice de Mortmaine was a general in the 
rebel army, and high in power then, and in his hands 
these captive lords were held. ’Twas late at night 
when the news of their capture reached Tressylian 
Hall, and the rain was pouring down like a flood. 
There was not a gentleman of the family at home ; 
from the gray-haired grandsire to the beardless strip- 
ling, all were bearing arms for the king. When the 
tidings reached the Hall, Lady Adelicia ordered her 
palfrey and an attendant, and, mounting, she rode in 
hot haste to Mortmaine Close, where the rebel general 
held his headquarters. The gates were locked, and 
when, in answer to their summons, the sentinel asked 
who they were, the lady said, 

“ ‘ Tell Lord Maurice de Mortmaine that the Lady 
Adelicia Tressylian stands at his gates and prays 
speech with him.’ 

“In a few moments the general came out, and 
himself led the palfrey into the court-yard, and, 
lifting the lady down, carried her into the hall, 
for the storm was raging wildly all the time. As 
soon as she stood upon the pavement, she fell at 


160 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


liis feet, and besought the lives of those so dear 
to her. 

“ Twas a strange sight to see — a Tressylian a 
suppliant. Lord Maurice heard her out, and then 
coldly said, 

“ 4 1 can save those lives, but if I do, it must 
be on my own terms. I love you, as you know. 
If you will marry me I will save them; if not, 
they die at sunrise.’ 

“Lady Adelicia knew the man — his inflexible 
selfishness, and cruel heart. She would plead no 
more, but, rising to her feet, proud and resolute as 
a Tressylian should be, she said, 

“‘You know that I do not love you, and that 
I have always loved another — that I would not 
give my cousin Rupert’s glove for your whole body ; 
but if you will spare the lives I came through 
wind and storm to save, on no terms but those you 
offer me, I will marry you. Set them at liberty, 
give them safe conduct to the coast of France; 
and when a trusty messenger, who shall be my 
own priest, brings me a sure token of their safety, 
the hour he returns, seek me at Tressylian Hall, 
and I will then marry you.’ 

“ c And what surety have I that Lady Adelicia 
will keep faith with the lover she abhors?’ he asked. 


SALTED WITH FIDE. 


161 


“ i If the word of a Tressylian, never yet pledged 
in vain, does not suffice, my Lord de Mortmaine, 
there lies my glove. I will redeem my word 
whenever you lay it before me,’ and she drew 
off her tiny gauntlet and threw it at his feet. 

“ The general sat down and wrote what she 
demanded, and gave it to an officer to be exe- 
cuted ; and then he begged her to remain and rest 
until morning. But she refused to sleep beneath 
his roof, and, declining the escort he urged upon 
her, mounted her palfrey and returned as she had 
come. 

“ In due time the clergyman returned, and brought 
her letters from her friends, who had reached the 
coast of France in safety. 

“Lord de Mortmaine came with the priest to 
Tressylian Hall, and when she had read her letters, 
he knelt before her and held up her little glove. 

“ ‘ I am ready, my lord,’ she said haughtily. 

“ They were standing in the great hall, Miss 
Helen, in the western court. The two officers of 
the rebel army who had accompanied the general, 
were called in as witnesses, and in a few minutes 
she had been made his wife. 

“When the ceremony was over, Lady Adelicia 
said, 


162 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


“ ‘ My Lord de Mortmaine, have I kept faith 
with you ? ’ 

“ ‘ Right nobly, lovely lady,’ he said, advancing 
to her. 

“But she waved him back, saying, 

“ ‘ Give me one moment’s liberty : ’ and as she 
spoke, she plunged a dagger swiftly in her breast, 
and exclaiming, 

“ ‘And thus I keep faith with Rupert,’ she fell 
dead in their midst. 

“ Lord de Mortmaine rushed out of the hall, 
and was slaughtered in the next battle; and ’tis 
said, when his body was examined, that the little 
glove of Lady Adelicia was found lying on his 
breast.” 

I listened quietly to the story, which I had heard 
before, and when it was ended I said, calmly, 

“You need not fear my killing myself, nurse, 
with either dagger or bowl; you will return the 
letter to its owner, and mamma and I will go 
to Italy. So you see there is to be no dying 
in the question.” 

Nurse looked at me in sorrowful surprise, and 
said wistfully, 

“Are you quite sure you are doing right, dear 
Miss Helen? To-morrow will be too late.” 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


163 


“I am quite sure, nurse; please go,” I answered 
steadily. 

She turned and slowly left the room, and I 
felt as if, in each step she took, she was treading 
on my heart. 

I do not understand how I lived through those 
days. Perhaps Dr. Stuart’s fear was partially true, 
and I was not mentally quite myself, but I was 
unconscious of the warp, if one existed. Indeed, 
I had no distinct consciousness of anything but 
dull, hopeless pain. 




CHAPTER XXII. 

My wedding-day dawned cold and cheerless ; a 
dull, gray fog clouded the landscape, and a sharp, 
searching wind blew fitfully from the sea. 

We were to he married very early in the morn- 
ing, at the church, with no witnesses except Dr. 
Stuart’s lawyer and the nurse. 

Mamma had hoped to go with - me, hut the 
day was too inclement for her to venture out; 
and so I went forth uncheered by her dear pres- 
ence, to take upon myself new ties and duties, and 
lay aside forever the dreams of my girlhood’s life. 

Dr. Stuart met me at the church-gate, and, leaning 
on his arm, I entered the door. 

The Rector, in his snowy robes, was standing in 
the chancel, and immediately commenced the cere- 
mony. I listened vaguely to his words, mechanically 
making the responses, and only fully realizing what 
it all meant, when his deep voice said, 


SALTED WITH FIRE \ 


165 


“I pronounce you man and wife.” 

Then a wild terror rushed over me, a frantic desire 
to flee away to the very ends of the earth. And then 
Dr. Stuart’s kiss was pressed upon my cheek, and his 
tender voice claimed me as his wife. 

As we turned from the chancel, an irresistible 
impulse to look up came over me. I raised my eyes 
to the organ-loft, and saw, sharply outlined against its 
crimson drapery, a white, stern face, locked and rigid 
with agony, and a pair of blazing eyes, filled with 
unutterable reproach, fixed full upon me. 

That look of agony ! Oh God ! it haunted me for 
years. 

I gazed upon him like a serpent-charmed bird, and 
then the face, stern and reproachful to the last, seemed 
to recede an immeasurable distance from me. A 
horror of great darkness, sudden, intense, and awful, 
fell upon me ; and without word or sound, I sank 
down unconscious at Dr. Stuart’s feet. 
******* 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Ten years have rolled into the gnlf of vanished 
time since that terrible day, and the woman who pens 
these Jines has but little in common with the one 
who was then treading alone the winepress of such 
fiery affliction. 

A long illness followed my inauspicious wedding — 
a brain-fever so severe that for weeks my life was 
scarcely hoped for, as it was feared that my reason 
would certainly be lost. Everything to me was a 
chaotic ruin. Hays, nights, and weeks, mingled into 
one, in the horrible phantasmagoria that represented 
existence for those many days, when the waters of 
affliction prevailed over the face of my earth, and the 
frail ark in which I was lodged tossed to and fro with 
the violence of the waves ; and when the fever 
abated there followed long, weary months of slow 
convalescence, when I seemed to stand still, getting 
neither better nor worse, a weak, helpless invalid. I 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


167 


was not fighting with disease alone, but with a crush- 
ing sorrow which defied all my efforts to subdue, and 
at times even to control its bitterness. 

My beloved mother died three years after my 
marriage, and her death opened anew the flood-gates 
of sorrow ; for, in all the tide of human woe, tears for 
a lost mother leave the deepest channels on the sands 
of life. 

What my husband was to me in those dark days 
no words of mine can tell. Always so kind and 
tender; never impatient of my ceaseless tears and 
wasting grief; but ever loving, and striving to com- 
fort the wife who was drenching his life with the salt 
spray of her woes. And when some word or tone, or 
some rush of memory, recalled another and a lost love 
to my mind, the tears that sprang unbidden from 
their fount were wept out upon his faithful bosom, or 
wiped .away by his most tender hand. The rarest 
forbearance, the most self-sacrificing generosity, found 
their incarnation in that peerless man. And as years 
wore on, and the sands of time drifted thicker over 
the deep grave in my heart, won at length by his 
untiring devotion, I began to lay aside my selfish 
sorrow, and to receive with something more than 
passive endurance, the ceaseless tokens of his love. 

At last I came to love him truly and tenderly ; not 


1G8 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


as I could love, not as I had loved, but with a depth 
and sincerity that I strove not to conceal. The days 
were brighter when he spent them all at my side, 
and I missed him with the keenest sense of loneliness 
when he was away. And for his dear sake I put all 
the past away from me, and strove to recall some of 
my olden brightness, to make sunshine in his home. 
But, like nearly all repentance, mine came too late to 
be of much avail. When I awoke to a sense of my 
error and would amend it, the hour had passed ; my 
span of time had reached its outer limit. 

My physique, naturally frail, and with a hereditary 
taint of consumption in it, had been so severely taxed 
by unaccustomed privation and sorrows that it sud- 
denly gave way. A mainspring had broken some- 
where, and the whole physical mechanism began 
swiftly to run down. 

My husband exhausted skill and science in the vain 
hope of arresting that disease which, if once fairly 
developed, completely baffles cure. His eye, usually 
so quick to detect the infliction of a vital blow, closed 
resolutely against the sight of the sign-manual of 
death upon my cheek. He would not see the rose 
from the garden of Azrael that bloomed so brightly 
there, or believe that my weakness and lassitude 
resulted from aught but a necessity for a change of 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


169 


air. And so we became perfect birds of passage, for- 
ever on the wing ; for, as soon as we had spent a few 
weeks at any place, Dr. Stuart, failing to perceive the 
expected improvement in my condition, would not 
believe that the fault lay in me, but would straight- 
way charge it upon the climate, and then become 
impatient to take me somewhere else. 

I never opposed these constant hegiras. If it was 
any comfort to him to employ every possible remedial 
agent, I was only too anxious that he should enjoy it 
while he could ; well knowing that the hopelessness 
of my case will become evident all too soon for 
him. 

I feel so sorry for him, when I see how devotedly 
he clings to the faded remnant of my life, and I know 
how fast it is slipping from his grasp ; for I feel that 
my days, perhaps even my hours, are all numbered. 
I stretched out my hand to-day, and my wedding-ring 
slipped from the finger that has grown all too small 
to keep it on ; and as dear, faithful nurse handed it 
back to me, I saw her turn her head aside to wipe 
away her tears. 

Were it not for the sake of my dear husband and 
herself, I would not grieve at laying down the life 
whose fetters have proved so heavy. For the one 
great object of my life has been realized at last — 


170 


SALTED WITH FIRE 


the safety of the soul once so inexpressibly dear to 
me, seems to have been granted to my ceaseless 
prayers. 

A few months ago, while we were in the south of 
France, a begging friar made his way into my room, 
where by some rare chance I had been left alone, and 
asked of me a small donation to his order. There 
was something familiar about the man that appealed 
to me strongly, and I gave him what he asked. After 
he had received it he knelt beside me and silently 
presented me with a small and exquisitely carved 
ivory crucifix. I refused, at first, to accept it, but he 
seemed so eager that I should that I said, 

“ I will take the cross, if you wish it so much, but 
you must accept from me in return an offering for 
your Lady’s shrine. "What shall I give you % ” 

“ If madame will give me the plainest ring upon 
her hand, it will be a most acceptable gift to my 
patron,” he said, with evident eagerness. 

I drew off a ring holding a large, exquisite pearl, 
and gave it to him. As he rose he hid it in the folds 
of his robe, and said earnestly, 

“ Press the crucifix to your lips, madame, if only 
once, for the sake of one poor soul.” 

I smiled at the superstition, but promised what he 
asked. He turned to go, and as he reached the door 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


171 


he paused and said rapidly, in an entirely different 
tone from the one he had used before, 

“ Senhora, I have followed you six months to find 
this moment. God preserve you for the sake of the 
lonely life that is wasting all its strength in vain 
regrets ! I will tell him all that has passed.” 

? Twas Piedro, Colonel De Yere’s Spanish servant ; 
and ere I could recover from the agitation of the 
memories his presence recalled he had gone. I held 
the cross still clasped in. my hands unnoticed for 
some time. When I remembered it, the pressure of 
my clasp had unfastened a spring at the back, and a 
little door opened, and revealed inscribed, in tiny but 
familiar characters, these words and initials : 

“ I have found the Lord. E. De Y.” 

That moment appeared to be all for which my 
strength had been reserved, for I have failed steadily 
ever since. 

I do not fear to die. ’Tis only for the sake of those 
to whom my life seems to be so dear that I would 
live. For myself, I am ready to lay down the burthen 
of this mortality whenever the Master wills, and await, 
in the hope of a joyful resurrection and reunion, the 
appointed time of Him, who, through the fiery fur- 
nace of affliction, snatched me, “ as a brand plucked 


172 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


from the burning,” from the sin of idolatry, and led 
me, chastened, humble, and repentant, to His feet. 
Even so, O Lord ! in Thine own way, Thy righteous 
will be done. 

******* 




CHAPTER XXIV. 

The manuscript of Mrs. Stuart terminates very 
abruptly. Whether she had written all that she 
intended can never now be known. Her husband, 
entering her room one day, found her fainting at her 
escritoire , and after that attack her malady increased 
with fearful rapidity, and in a few weeks terminated 
her existence. 

The closing scenes were peaceful and serene. She 
retained her consciousness to the last, and gently fell 
asleep in Jesus, with her head resting upon her 
husband’s breast. 

At her express wish she was buried at Exham, near 
the church; and in an incredibly short time, long 
before the order sent to Italy by Dr. Stuart could be 
filled, a superb shaft of the finest Carrara marble was 
placed over her grave. The inscription upon it was 
touching in its extreme simplicity — only her name 
and age, followed by the words, 


174 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


“ My soul followeth hard after thee.” 

Whose hand had erected this monument of love was 
never known, for the workmen were all foreigners, 
and sworn to secrecy. But the conjecture that it was 
Colonel De Yere is probable enough to wear the air 
of certainty. 

Dr. Stuart returned to Exham, and, after some 
time, resumed his charitable ministrations among the 
poor and wretched. Nurse Becky, of course, lived 
with him until the close of her faithful life. 

The only allusion he ever made to the revelations 
contained in Mrs. Stuart’s memoirs, was to an inti- 
mate brother practitioner, who had been compliment- 
ing him on his unerring skill in diagnosis, to which 
he replied, sadly, 

“ You very much over-estimate my abilities in what 
you term my specialty. I am often almost a crim- 
inal blunderer. I once treated a case for mental 
aberration when the true malady was a breaking 
heart, and, ere I discovered my error, I had gone too 
far to save the patient.” 



CHAPTER XXV . 

At the close of a dull November day, in the marble 
halls of a Venetian palace, a man, worn by the storms 
of forty-nine years, lay dying. 

Through the pale lips the faint breath came slow 
and labored ; across the broad brow were the foot- 
prints of sorrow; and mingling with the rich mass 
of dark hair was many a silver thread, that told its 
own story of hours of silent agony. 

Wasted by grief, and rudely shaken by tempes- 
tuous sorrow, the sands of life had nearly run out, 
and the vital flame burnt low and dim. For hours 
he had lain thus, silent and motionless, doing bat- 
tle alone with the last adversary with whom he 
should ever cross swords. 

Across the dreary waters of the Adriatic sea the 
vesper-bells pealed clear and soft. At their first 
chime, a change came over the worn face of the 
sufferer, a color crept into his pale cheeks, a light 


176 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


of sudden joy blazed in liis dark eyes, and, stretch- 
ing out his arms with a strength which seemed to 
come from an unknown source, he exclaimed, in 
a voice whose failing music thrilled with the rap- 
ture of a realized hope, 

“Oh, Father! I thank thee! Helen, my darling, 
mine own at last.” 

And then the silence and shadow of death fell over 
him ; and the tide of life and love was suddenly 
merged in the waters of that wide sea whose waves 
lap the dim shores of the great Hereafter. 

And who will deny that there met him on that 
farther side, her whom in life he had loved so ten- 
derly, and in death had lamented so faithfully? 
Surely the All-Father, in His tender compassion 
for His children, will gather up these fragmentary, 
insufficient lives, and for the cross He has laid 
upon them' here, He will give them a crown of 
rejoicing in His everlasting Kingdom, where their 
long sorrow will be turned into joy, eternal in the 
Heavens, and that fadeth not away. 

In the quiet little church at Exham, in sound 
of the restless, moamng sea, there soon was made 
another solitary tomb ; and in it the self-exiled lord 
of Seaforth Court lay sleeping quietly at last. 


SALTED WITH FIRE. 


177 


“ His palms were folded on liis breast — 

There was no other thing expressed, 

But long disquiet merged in rest.” 

And over this tomb, when the clear twilight is 
lying like a soft veil over the face of day, there 
often bends a lonely, smitten man, who, as he. reads 
the name, with its sonnding titles and long descent, 
can find in his noble heart no root of bitterness 
against the memory of the rival whose faults he covers 
and whose blessings he sums up in the generous 
words and thought, 

“ My darling loved him.” 












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